


Veni, Vidi, Reliquit

by andeemae



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:38:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 88,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andeemae/pseuds/andeemae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The college misadventures of Madge and Gale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Veni,Vidi,Reliquit

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Late October, Freshman Year

Madge didn't like parties. Not for her parents, not for school, and definitely not keggers on Thursdays at some idiots house just off campus. This was going to get her killed, she was going to end up as an episode of Dateline, as a warning to young girls about the dangers of college parties.

The little rental house looked like something straight out of Animal House. There were people in bedsheets running around, slinging cheap beer from their red plastic cups everywhere, some moron was trying to start the charcoal grill using what appeared to be a rub on shoe polish sponge and a clear substance of unknown flammability. Madge guessed the answer was 'highly'.

"Ish no w-workin'," he complained to his friend.

"You neeta light it, bro."

Madge began praying she was gone before they found anything, even a spare bit of flint and steel, to try out their innovation with.

She was going to kill Katniss and Peeta. They owed her big time for coming for their dumb butts.

They'd gone to the party, thrown by one of Katniss' fellow engineering students, just for a few drinks, then they'd said they were going to bow out and head home.

It hadn't quite gone that way.

Katniss had apparently gotten in a drinking game of some sort with one of the grad students. If being one drink from passing out meant you won, then Katniss had beaten the girl into the ground. Madge was fairly certain, though, that wasn't the case.

Peeta had called around the middle of the game, asking Madge to 'Please,please, come get us'. Katniss was a notoriously mean drunk and Peeta had sounded a little tipsy too, though at least he still had enough sense at the time to call for help.

So Madge had rolled out of bed, thrown on some jeans and a hoodie, then drove, slowly, across town, to what looked to be a less than reputable neighborhood, to rescue her idiot friends.

She looked up at the house, her bubble of personal space was about to be painfully popped.

The house wasn't big, but it was packed with people, smelled of alcohol and too much body spray trying to mask the horrible odor. Taking a deep breath, Madge pushed through the sweaty, stinky, incredibly inebriated crowd, hoping it would be easy to find her missing friends.

Someone caught her by the elbow, let out a shrill squeal. Madge feels her heart stop in her chest.

"Oh my god! You came!" The platinum blonde pulled Madge into a hug, overwhelming her with the scent of expensive perfume and the liquor from the drink in her hand.

Oh, god, my bubble!

Madge recognized the girl from her statistics class. She'd made an unbearable class even more intolerable with her pointless questions and constant need to text during discussions. Even her name was annoying, Glory or Glamour or Glitter, something that belonged on some poor celebrity child. They'd never even spoken, clearly she had Madge mixed up with someone else.

The girl released her, smiling drunkenly, then squinting, "You were supposed to pledge our house, what happened?"

Madge nearly corrects her, tells her she had never rushed and she was mixing her up with someone else, but instead shrugs. She just can't help herself.

"Oh, uh, I went with Omega Beta Zeta."

The girl squints, racks her lone brain cell, she doesn't recognize the name, but she's too drunk to put that together into words. She nods, makes a vague noise.

"I gotta go," Madge makes a face, gestures to the hallway leading away from the kitchen and the Ralph Lauren sheet wearing girl, and hopefully, to Katniss and Peeta.

Before Glimmer, that was her name, can stop her she pushes off, toward the exit.

She gets stuck behind a couple messily making out, annoyingly blocking the hall entrance, when someone comes up behind her, blows hot air into her ear and whispers hoarsely, "What's your favorite scary movie?"

Not him.

That would be her luck.

She turns and finds her nose nearly bumping into the voice's cheek.

Gale Hawthorne, Katniss' long time neighbor and friend, and normally a complete jerk. While he and Madge had gone to school together, K-12 though he'd been a couple of years ahead, he'd basically pretended she didn't exist or was the most unappealing human he'd ever had to share oxygen with. He'd spent years mostly communicating with her through elaborate grunts, using full sentences only when necessary. It had stung a little, a lot if she was honest, he was possibly one of the cutest boys at their school and he looked at her like she was barely human.

Katniss still hung out with him, but Madge avoided him. It wasn't worth the effort and the damage to her ego.

Now, though, he's grinning at her as he straightens up.

"Scary movie? Really, Madge? You couldn't have gone with Pi Delta Pi or Zeta Beta Zeta?"

She gives him an uncertain look, "It's from Scream two, learn your movie references."

He smirks, puts his arm over the top of her, palm against the wall, and leans in. Madge leans back. He's in her bubble.

"Why don't you teach me some then?"

She makes a face. Why is he being nice to her? Almost flirting with her? Normally he treats her as if she ranks with jock itch in the list of things that annoy him.

Then his breath hits her. A little pungent, heavy with alcohol. She rolls her eyes, of course he's drunk, that would be the only way he would be nice to her.

She takes a step back, bumps into the wall and crosses her arms.

"Gale, I'm looking for Katniss and Peeta, have you seen them?"

Surely he had, he was probably the one that had goaded Katniss into coming to the party in the first place. She wouldn't be surprised if this was his house, actually.

He nods, but doesn't say anything, just continues to grin drunkenly at her.

She huffs, "Well?"

Gale scratches his cheek, covered in a dark stubble, looks around, ignoring her question. "You want something?" He points to the fridge, "Uh, Thom brought some wine coolers and some hard lemonade, you like those?"

"I don't drink." She's going to strangle him if he doesn't focus. Her voice raises an octave, there's too many people crushing in on her and she just wants to leave. "I'm not here for the party. Listen, I'm here for Katniss and Peeta. They need a ride home. Please tell me where they are."

He squints, processing her words, her tone, then points down the still blocked hallway.

Madge forces a smile, "Thank you."

Now she can collect her friends and get out of this hell hole.

If she can get the gross couple to move.

She ducks under Gale's arm, goes back to the couple, tries poking each of them on the shoulder, but they're too absorbed with each other to notice. A deep, authoritative voice booms out behind her.

"The lady needs through."

Gale pushes them aside, not that they notice, then waves Madge through.

"Thank you."

He follows her down the tiny dark hall. She looks back at him and frowns.

"I'm pretty sure I can find them from here." She doesn't need an escort.

He shrugs, continues to breathe down her neck. It's unnerving, how close he is, dressed only in a sheet. She eyes the pattern in confusion.

"Are you-are those your sheets?"

He grins again, looks down at his toga. "The Avengers? Yep."

Her eyebrows arch up. Of course. Why not?

"I've got Iron Man on my boxers. Wanna see?"

Madge closes her eyes. She's glad there's more between them than just his children's section sheet, but she doesn't need visual confirmation. With a little grimace, she shakes her head.

Gale snorts, "Prude."

Ignoring him, she continues down the hall, until Gale stops and puts his hand on the handle of the only door on the right. When he swings it open, they get an eyeful.

"Oh god!"

"Shut the door!"

"Oh god!"

It was too late though, they'd seen too much. Arms, legs, and a whole lot of naked.

Madge covered her face and turned to the opposite wall. She needed to bleach her eyes, her brain, burn the image of Katniss and Peeta impersonating an octopus out of her memory.

Gale clears his throat, "I, uh, guess we should've knocked."

Yes, yes we should have.

The door creaks open, just enough for Peeta's blonde head to poke out.

"Hi, Madge."

She doesn't turn from the wall. She can't look at him.

"Uh, well, she woke up, and, uh, well-"

"Peeta, please just get dressed," she gently bangs her forehead into the wall.

He makes an affirmative noise and she hears the door gently shut.

The hall is quiet, only the muffled noise of the music from the front of the house keeps it from complete silence.

"Party in the USA?" Gale groans.

Madge keeps her face in the wall, "You're at a college party, what do you expect? Indie rock hits?"

He flops onto the wall next to her, shrugging. "I requested Seether."

"Good luck with that." She doubts he's getting anything but top 40 hits while he's here. "Just enjoy what you get."

He chuckles, nudges her with his shoulder, "Are you going to turn around?"

She isn't sure. Seeing Katniss and Peeta like that might be the end of their friendship with Madge. There are some things you just can't come back from.

"Gotta hand it to Mellark, that was a pretty creative-"

Madge covers her ears. She does not need a reminder.

She feels his breath come down on her in a hot puff, he's laughing at her.

"You are such a prude."

"Whatever." She finally turns, crosses her arms and stares at the door, waiting for the other two to hurry up and get out so she can go home and begin purging her mind with Disney movies.

Gale reaches over and begins toying with a strand of her hair that's escaped her ponytail. He twirls it around his finger idly.

Madge gives him a scrutinizing look. His hair is mussed, not that it's ever all that tidy. He could use a shave, he has what she suspects is a two or three day grown coming on across his cheeks, chin, jaw, and down his neck. There's a smudge of what looks suspiciously like lipgloss, smeared on the side of his mouth. His gait was steady and his eyes aren't unfocused, in fact, they look amazingly clear in the dull light from the naked hallway bulb. He isn't as drunk as she'd originally thought, which baffles her to no end.

She tugs the strand from his fingers. She needs him out of her bubble.

His mouth turns down, a little crease forms between his eyes.

Her attention goes back to the door across from her.

"Why don't you drink?"

What? She frowns as she turns to him.

"You said you don't drink. Why not?"

It really annoys her when people ask her that, as if not wanting to drink makes her some kind of circus freak. She doesn't like the taste or the smell or what it does to people. Everyone has preferences, and hers happened to not include alcohol.

"I just don't."

Gale watches her for a moment, tugs at Captain America's face to loosen the knot keeping his toga up. "Okay."

The door finally opens and a sheepish looking Peeta followed by a glowering Katniss emerge.

"Pervert," Katniss hisses at Gale before she stumbles into Peeta. She may be standing, doing other things, but she's still pretty drunk. She glares at Peeta, as though he's the one that fell into her, grabs him around the neck to keep herself upright, then commands him to walk.

Grinning, Peeta helps his very unsteady girlfriend down the hall.

Gale takes the tail of his toga and makes a whipping noise. Madge rolls her eyes.

"What? He is."

"He's a good boyfriend." Madge gives him a sharp look, "You'd probably encourage whatever girl you were with to get on a table and strip."

Though from what she remembers of Gale's 'girlfriends' they wouldn't have needed neither the encouragement nor the drinks to do that.

He actually looks a little offended, gives her a glare, "Have a real high opinion of me don't you?"

Madge stops and gives him a faint smile, "Like my opinion matters."

They follow Peeta and Katniss, clad in pink and yellow togas, out the sliding glass door, into the backyard, strewn with cups and empty bottles. Madge feel relief wash over her as she steps out of the stuffy house. The grillmaster from earlier and his friend are there, Madge notices they're both missing their eyebrows, the must've found a lighter or matches. They have several very large fireworks set up, on the grass, a little too close to the house. Their failure to burn the neighborhood down with their deadly concoction at the grill apparently disappointed them, they were upgrading to gunpowder.

Those two are about to win a couple of Darwin Awards.

"It does," Gale says suddenly, as they pass the last of the fireworks.

Madge frowns.

"Your opinion, it matters."

She wrinkles her nose, "Why?"

He didn't even like her. Why would he care what she thought of him or his flings?

Gale shrugs, "It just does."

Right as she starts to counter him, tell him to stop being so cryptic, she spots where her car should be. It's not though.

"I left it right here." She locked it. She had her keys in her hand. Where was it?

Gale grimaces, "This isn't a great neighborhood."

Great, now she had to file a police report and then explain to her parents why she was in a shady part of town and had her car stolen. Fantastic.

The joke was on whoever stole it, though. That car was one missed oil change away from biting the dust. She isn't sure what an alternator is, but it sounded pretty damn important, and the guy that worked on her family's cars told her it was about to go out.

Peeta looks around, "Uh, mines gone too."

This night just kept getting better and better.

Madge presses her fingers to her eyes until she sees stars.

"Come on, we can take my truck," Gale gestures down the road.

She starts to ask what they'll do if Gale's truck is gone, but the moment they cross the street, spot the sandblasted single cab that looks like it might collapse under its own rusted weight, she lets the question die.

Katniss attempts to crawl in the bed, but her foot slips off the tire and she bangs her chin against the side.

"Just get in the front," Madge grumbles. She just wants to get home and plan what she's going to tell her parents.

"No way." Gale shakes his head. "She's gonna hurl any minute now. I know this girl. The moment this thing starts moving she's going to lose it and I don't want to be in a closed space with her when she does."

Katniss glares at him and mumbles some very unflattering things, but loses some of her bravado when she starts to gag.

Peeta nods, "I'm with Gale. The back seems like a wiser choice."

Gale drops the tailgate and he and Peeta push an increasingly sluggish Katniss up. Peeta crawls in after her, helping her shuffle to the front.

Madge eyes her warily, "Put her on her side. That way if she throws up she won't choke."

Gale pulls out his keys and opens the door, but Madge snatches them away.

"Hey!" He makes to grab them back. "What are you doing?"

"You've been drinking. I'm driving."

He scoffs, "I just had a few cups. I'm fine now."

She shakes her head and hides the keys behind her back. He reaches around her, trapping her between him and the hood of his truck. He lets out a little growl of frustration, "Give them back."

He's too close, she can feel her heart pounding. She isn't sure what he'll do, and that terrifies her, but he can't have the keys.

"Gale, please," she uses her softest voice, the one she uses with her mother when she's in a state.

Gale frowns and backs away, raising his hands in surrender.

He opens the door for her and she crawls in, noticing, to her horror, it's a standard.

Shit.

Gale slides in the passenger door, across the seat, stretching his arm behind her. She shoots him a look, does he not understand the concept of personal space?

"There's a whole side. Do you have to sit on me?"

"My truck." He narrows his eyes, "Do you know how to drive stick?"

She'd done it exactly once. It had ended in tears.

He doesn't need t know that though.

After several false starts, several kills, they finally get to the main road, settle into a slow pace.

Gale, still leaning on her, watching the speedometer, gives her a smirk, "You can kick it up, go a littlefaster you know? I'd like to make it back home before dinner."

"Ha, ha." She rolls her eyes.

If he would scoot away, stop staring her down, she could do this. He was too close, she could smell the last traces of his cologne and the detergent from his toga mixing with the musty smell of his sweat. He was making her sweat. His breath kept skipping across her neck and hair, the alcohol was almost gone, but it was still a little stale.

"I wasn't going to hurt you."

She stops herself from looking at him, her eyes need to stay on the road, even if they're barely going.

"I know." She didn't. Not really.

"Someone hit you?"

Her head snaps over. Where had that come from?

"What? No! Why would you think that?"

Gale stares at her for a minute, thinking over his words carefully, like she's made of glass. He shrugs, "You looked like you were waiting for me to snap." He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Madge, if someone hurt you…"

Madge bites her lip, looks back and forth from him and the road. He's being very nice, a little too nice, but it's pleasant. She wishes he talked to her like this all the time instead of waiting until he's had a few drinks.

"No one has hurt me." He's taking the superheroes on his sheet a little too close to heart. "My-my aunt was killed by a drunk driver."

Before she was even born, but she was still being haunted by the accident that killed her mother's twin. Her mother, who'd been in the car as well, had healed from her physical injuries, but her emotional damages were never quite mended. She'd become addicted to pills, narcotics, something she was able to hide for years before anyone even noticed. Their family was in constant flux, trying to get her mother the help she needed.

Madge spent most of her childhood watching her mother battle with her demons, in and out of facilities, missing birthdays and school functions, even Madge's high school graduation.

That's nothing Gale needs to know, though, not at the moment.

"I'm sorry."

She shrugs, "I just don't want to put another family through a death if I can keep it from happening."

Even if it makes everyone think she's a circus freak.

He stays quiet for the rest of the ride. A few times she thinks he might've passed out, but he's just sitting, his arm across her back, watching the road slowly move ahead of them.

When they finally pull up to she and Katniss' apartment, Madge lets out a sigh of relief. She almost gets out and kisses the ground, she's that happy.

Gale and Peeta heave the now loudly snoring Katniss from the bed of the truck and carry her up the steep steps to the apartment.

When they get inside, Peeta carries his girlfriend into her room and kicks the door shut.

Gale flops into the sofa and stretches out.

Madge frowns, "What are you doing?"

He gives her an incredibly serious stare, "I've been drinking. I can't drive."

So he's staying here.

Damn him, using her issues against her.

"Fine." She reaches into the closet, pulls down the most horrible, pinkest, fuzziest blanket they own, and tosses it to him. "I'm giving you a wake-up call with 'Wrecking Ball', though, just so you know."

His eyes narrow, "Don't you dare."

Madge smirks. She would dare. All she had to do was download it.

Gale unties the knot on his toga, pulls it off and tosses it at her. She ducks it and just catches a glimpse of his Iron Man boxers before he covers himself with the too short blanket. Great, now the only thing between her microfiber sofa and his nakedness was Tony Stark.

She makes a face at that thought and starts to walk away.

"Hey Madge?"

Turning, she finds him leaning over the back of the sofa, watching her, his expression is a little guarded.

"Yeah?" Make it quick, she nearly says, it's almost two in the morning. She wants to go to bed.

"What is your favorite scary movie?"

Her nose wrinkles. Why does he want to know? Telling him is definitely a bad idea. "Why?"

He shrugs, "I dunno, I thought, maybe, you know, we could pull it up sometime. Watch it together…"

She still doesn't quite understand, "Why?"

Gale lets out a groan, "As a date."

It takes a second for her to process what he's saying. He wants a date, with her, watching a scary movie. She's having some weird dream. That's the only explanation for what she's hearing.

"You don't even like me."

"Of course I do! Why would I want to go on a date with you if I didn't like you?"

"Because you're drunk." He wasn't falling down drunk, but he was still clearly inebriated. He wouldn't be asking her on a date otherwise. In the morning he'd be back to grunting at her.

Gale throws himself back in the sofa in frustration, making a strangled noise and covering his face. His voice comes out muffled, "I'm not drunk!"

He rolls off the sofa, stomps over to her. She backs up, uncertain what he's going to do. Then his hands are cupping her face, much more gently than she expects, and he kisses her.

The beer is still there, stale, but weaker, his lips are chapped, a little eager, and the scruff of his stubble is irritating against her skin. He eases her back until she bumps into the wall, then his body, tall and lean and in nothing but boxers is against hers. Rough hands ghost up her waist, just under her hoodie. He makes a needful noise in the back of his throat, groans, before finally breaking the kiss, resting his forehead against hers.

"I'm not drunk. I like you. Do you want to go on a date?"

She's still trying to catch her breath, but manages to get a question out, "Why do you like me all of a sudden?"

He sighs, "I've always like you." She rolls her eyes, he had a funny way of showing it. "I just, back in school you were you and so perfect and I was me, and kind of a loser, no one even thought I'd get into college…" He traces her cheeks with his thumbs. "What's it that Mellark calls it, a defense mechanism? I knew I couldn't have you, I wasn't good enough, so I just kinda…"

"Treated me like dog food?"

He makes a face, "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

Maybe not, but it felt like it when she was younger.

"What's different now?"

A little smile sneaks onto his face, "I just got an internship. They called me today, told me I was in." His smile bursts full force, "I'm not a loser after all."

Madge's cheeks hurt and she realizes she's smiling, beaming at him. "Gale, you were never a loser." How could he ever have thought that? "That's great though!"

He pulls her into a hug, buries his face in her hair. Her bubble is nonexistent at this point. Still, it's a little awkward, he's practically naked and her arms are pinned to her sides. She supposes it could be worse, her hands could be trapped in front of her.

She feels his hot breath on her scalp, hears him swallow thickly, "So…how about it?" He pulls back, "Date?"

Madge makes a thoughtful face, "How about 'The Exorcist'?"

He makes a face.

"Does my choice scareyou?"

Gale chuckles, "Your driving scaresme. Your movie choice makes me a little concerned."

Madge snorts, "Too late to back out now."

He leans in, kisses her again, more gently, "Wouldn't dream of it."

Maybe she wouldn't kill Katniss and Peeta after all.

They still owed her one, though, maybe she'd make them explain to her parents what happened to her car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so just like the HS AU, this one is written out of order. I wrote it that way originally and it's easier to add to being that way. I've put timestamps at the start of each chapter to help keep everything straight. If you've read these where I've had them posted previously, I've updated the dates to be a little more specific (months instead of just seasons). Sorry if it's confusing.  
> Also, this story is a little less sweet and a little more silly than the HS AU, because, well, it's college. Just to warn you. Again, sorry.


	2. 1/2 Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Late October, Freshman Year

It had been a mistake to try sushi on their first date.

Gale had promised her it was good, but he had an iron gut, could dispose of any and all foods no matter how questionable they were. Madge, on the other hand, had what he and Katniss described as a 'delicate constitution' when it came to edibles.

The roll, which had the innocent sounding name of the 'Aloha State' in its moniker, had been her first choice. What bad could possibly come from Hawaii?

A lot apparently.

She hadn't even completely chewed her first bite when she began gagging. The texture, the flavor, every aspect of it seemed to scream 'get it out' in her mind, but she'd just barreled on, swallowed it down without completely chewing.

Mistake.

Not half a minute later her stomach gurgled and she was running through the restaurant with her hand over her mouth, dodging the chairs of other patrons as she raced to the bathroom.

It was only by the grace of some higher power that she made it to the toilet before that one bite found its way back up through her esophagus and out her mouth.

Now she's collapsed on the surely disgusting floor of a public restroom, her mouth tasting of vomit and semi digested seafood.

Her stomach still hasn't forgiven her. It rolls and rumbles, threatening to send up more ghosts of meals past to visit her, teach her a lesson about trying new things. And that lesson was don't.

Someone knocks on her stall door, a woman's soft voice calls out to her, "Miss? Are you okay in there?"

I'm dying!

"I'm fine."

Madge can see her shoes move under the door, hesitate for a minute, then she knocks again, "Are you sure?"

No.

"Yes."

"Your boyfriend is outside the door. He's very worried."

Tell him this is his fault.

"Tell him I'm fine."

For a minute the woman stands at the door, then her feet disappear and Madge lets her head rest back against the cool metal on the side of the stall. Until another wave of nausea hits her.

She grabs the bowl, retches in, and looses yesterday's lunch.

Heaven help her, she's holding onto a public toilet. There isn't enough soap and hand sanitizer in the world, she's either going to have to cut off her hands or put them in the chemistry department's autoclave. Those are her only options.

While she's heaving, gagging, someone comes up behind her and pulls the loose strands of hair from her slowly collapsing bun out of her face. It startles her for a moment, but she's too sick to worry about whoever is touching her.

When she finally stops she feels a rough hand gently run up and down her back. Glancing over, she finds Gale crouching down to her left, trapped between she and the bathroom stall. He has a paper towel, dampened, in his hand, takes it and hands it to her.

Utterly embarrassed, Madge wipes her mouth and nose. Their first date and she's got throw-up coming out her nose. She blots a few tears from the corners of her eyes.

What a lovely picture she must be.

"I'm so sorry."

She wouldn't blame him if he left her right now. She's a complete mess over one bite.

Gale chuckles, "For what?"

With a garbled laugh she gestures to her face, hair, then the toilet.

He shrugs, "At least you didn't do it in my mouth."

There's probably a story there, but she's one hundred percent certain she doesn't want to know it.

For a minute they sit on the floor of the stall, Madge still half laying on the stool and Gale's hand in her hair. Finally, she nods, "I think I'm through."

Gale gets up, puts his hands under her arms and pulls her to her feet. She wobbles, doesn't have her balance completely, so he pulls her to him.

She immediately holds her arms out. They've been on the toilet, the public toilet. She at least needs to wash them off.

"Sink. I need the sink."

He steers her to the sink and she grimaces as she sees her reflection.

She's seen mug shots on cop shows that look less deranged. Her mascara is running on the sides, she's smeared her blush off, making her pale and washed out, the gloss she'd put on was long gone, and her hair…it was past the point of rescue.

Tears began working their way into her eyes.

Quickly, she turns the water to the hottest lukewarm temperature it will go to and scrubs her hands raw before ducking down and washing the last remnants of her fading makeup from her face.

It doesn't really improve her looks, but it makes her feel a little better.

Sniffling, she turns and finds another paper towel, dry this time, in Gale's outstretched hand.

After she's dried, taken a breath, standing on her own, she nods to Gale again, "Okay. Let's go."

He leads her out, through the restaurant, a walk of shame of sorts, with his warm hand on the small of her back. When they get outside the cool air hits her and she feels the lingering nausea subside. She lets out a sigh of relief.

"Better?"

Madge grimaces, keeps her face down. "Yeah."

His hand creeps up her back, to her neck, massaging it a little before letting it drop. They stand there, a little awkwardly, for a few minutes, Madge just taking a few breaths to clear the smell and taste from her mouth and nose.

"I'm sorry I ruined the date."

He huffs, "You didn't ruin it." His had reaches out, one of his fingers tips her chin up trying to make her look at him, "You got us a free meal out of the deal."

She snorts, a little trapped vomit escapes and she gags again. Gale had wisely brought a handful of towels with him and hands her one.

"I think most of my free meal went down the drain."

"Money well spent."

"Don't make me laugh!" It makes nasty stuff happen.

He takes one of the towels and pinches it to her nose, "God, you're worse than my sister."

Madge shivers, it's getting chilly, and while she's contemplating how badly she must look and how pathetic it is that her might-be, sorta-is, boyfriend is wiping her nose, he pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her tightly to his chest.

"Gale, I'm disgusting." She's been on the floor in the restroom at a restaurant, flailing over a toilet, bits of the bowl water had probably splashed up in her face and hair…

"You're cold."

His hands rub up and down her back a few times, getting progressively lower each time.

"Gale…"

He grins, raises his eyebrows, as if he doesn't know what she's trying to tell him.

"Can we go home? I need a shower." She needs to boil her skin.

He doesn't answer, just bends down a little and hoists her up.

She squeals, "Gale!"

Running, he carries her to his banged up truck and yanks open the passenger side door, tossing her in.

"Oh, I get to ride inside?" She points to the truck bed. "Not gonna give me the 'Katniss' treatment?"

"There's only one reason you're ever going in that truck bed, and it isn't because you're tossing your cookies."

Madge's nose wrinkles up. She doesn't get it.

"Wha-"

He shuts the door and runs around the truck and gets in the driver's side.

"Here," he reaches behind the seat and pulls a blanket out, hands it to her before starting the truck. His eyes flicker over to her, "Uh, my place is closer…"

Madge feels her heart stop. Her mouth dries and she feels her face warm again. She might throw up again.

They hadn't even gotten through a first date. Did they still have to go back to his place? Can't she get a redo? A mulligan?

They didn't even get through one date…

Gale must sense her distress, notice he's said something that put her in a panic, because his eyes widen and he reaches out, rests his hand on her shoulder.

"Madge, I just meant for you to take a shower."

Her heart sputters, begins beating again, and she lets out a broken little laugh.

"I knew that."

Honestly? She didn't.

He seems to sense that, takes his finger and traces her cheek, gives her a small, reassuring smile.

"Do you know how long I've liked you?"

Madge frowns, what did that have to do with anything?

Gale reaches over, grabs her around the waist and pulls her to his side. His arm stretches out, over and around her back, then he leans over a little, rests his cheek on her filthy, disheveled hair.

"Do you remember your seventh grade year?"

She does. Unfortunately. Despite her best efforts to forget it.

"Katniss told me the teacher made you all pair off and that no one wanted to be partners with her-"

That was true. Mostly because almost everyone thought Katniss was just the teensiest bit scary.

"-but you did."

Not entirely true. No one wanted Madge either. She was quiet and easily forgotten. No one wants the girl that they can't even be bothered to remember exists half the time.

"You made her feel like less of an outcast. I know it didn't seem like it, but she appreciated it. She liked you. Told me about you. I mean, I kinda knew you before, knew who you were, but the first time you came to her house…" He lets out a long breath.

Madge feels her face burn. 'Seventh grade' Madge had looked only slightly less disastrous than 'Just rolled around on a bathroom floor' Madge. Her hair had been permed, face had been broken out, skin constantly greasy, and her clothes…

It was best not to think about the fashion of her junior high self.

The awkward early years of puberty had been unkind to her to say the least.

Not that she felt she was going to win any beauty contests now, but at least she wasn't impersonating an eighties hair band.

Gale's look of nostalgia tells her he clearly has her mixed up with some other, far more fortunate girl.

"You were wearing this pretty little dress, white, and you wore a blue bra under it."

Not one of her better choices. She hadn't really 'bloomed' until that year, coordinating bras under shirts was a little more tricky than panties under pants.

"You were so beautiful and so sweet." He grins down at her, "And so out of my league it wasn't even funny."

Yeah, he definitely had her mixed up with someone else.

"Gale…"

He looks like he might kiss her, which, quite honestly, is a little gross. She still tastes vomit in her mouth.

Instead, he bends a little more, nuzzles into her ear, "I've been in love with you since I was fifteen. I waited this long, I'll wait some more."

Madge reallywishes she didn't smell and taste so nasty, he deserves at least a very long, very hard kiss for that.

"We can go to your place." She gives him a little smile, "For a shower. And to brush my teeth."

She hopes he has an extra one.

Gale puts the truck in drive, keeps his arm around her shoulder. She admires his dedication to it, she knows she stinks.

"We get you cleaned up then we use Mellark's password to watch something. Sound good?"

Madge nods into his side, takes a deep breath, trying to replace the acrid smell of vomit from her nose with him, soap, detergent, cologne, and him.

The sushi had been a mistake, no doubt about that, but maybe the date could be salvaged after all.


	3. Can't take 'em anywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

September, Freshman Year

"What exactly are we looking for again?"

Gale and Katniss exchange a look, silently agreeing they shouldn't have brought the 'city mice' with them to find their new toys.

"Bow string," Katniss reminds them, her mouth turned down. Madge thinks if either she or Peeta asks again they'll be strangled with said bow string as soon as it's found.

The only reason Peeta had come was because he and Katniss wanted to go to the movies after and it made no sense to waste gas driving up after. When Katniss mentioned Gale was meeting them, Peeta had begged Madge to go with them. Something about it being awkward with just the three of them.

"How will it be any less awkward with me there?" Honestly, it would probably be worse.

Peeta shrugged, "Someone else for me to talk to when they go all zombie apocalypse?"

Madge wrinkled her nose, "But I'll have to ride home with him…"

An odd little smirk flickered on Peeta's face, but maybe she was imagining things, then he made his most obnoxious pout, "Please, Madge? For me? Take one for the team."

She was such a pushover when it came to her friends.

The moment they walk through the faux cabin doors of the sporting goods store Madge notices the taxidermy. Bison, turkey, squirrels, what appeared to be a skunk…

Peeta nudges her, "Does this…remind you of anything?"

"Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls?"

"We are so on the level."

They trail behind the purposefully striding Katniss and Gale, who seem to know exactly where they are going.

Madge scans her surroundings, all the shelves were packed with things she'd never even considered. She reaches out and plucks a bottle up.

"Fox urine?" What do you do with fox urine? How do you collectfox urine?

Peeta, who is studying psychology, eyes it, fighting a smile, "Clearly for the deeply disturbed."

Katniss and Gale turn, both looking a little offended.

"We buy fox urine," Gale growls.

Not even looking flustered, Peeta grins over to Madge, "I rest my case."

Katniss huffs, takes off again. Gale snatches the bottle from Madge and slams it back onto the shelf. Madge knows it's a bad idea, Gale is in a consistently bad mood, especially when she's around, but she has to ask.

"What do you do with 'fox urine'?"

"We use it to cover our scent during hunts."

Well, obviously. How could she have been so stupid.

Madge wrinkles her nose, "So…do you, what, rub it on you?"

She's never seen Gale blush, he may not even be capable of doing so, but his face darkens.

"No." He actually sounds a little flustered. He doesn't elaborate, so she thinks he might be lying. This is something she'll need to investigate further.

Before she can question him, the thought of he and Katniss rubbing animal urine on themselves is a little humorous, and incredibly gross, he takes off.

"They do rub it on themselves," Peeta gags.

After finding a can of bear mace ("How close do I have to be to the bear to mace it?") and trying out several duck calls ("Can I use this to find Donald at Disneyworld?") Gale turns to them and glares.

"Are you trying to be annoying?"

Madge is. She really doesn't want to be there, but if she's going to, she might as well enjoy it.

He and Katniss begin testing out new bows, they can't really afford them, but Madge guesses it's like window shopping for normal people. She turns to Peeta, to ask him to google the fox urine, it has some major potential, but finds he's disappeared.

She turns on the spot. Where did he go?

Then she spots him, across the store, in the marine section, climbing aboard a large boat display.

He's under a sign with the words 'Tracker' emblazoned on it, waves at her from the deck and mouths the words, 'I'm on a boat!', then begins dancing.

Katniss groans, "I can't take him anywhere."

She jogs off to retrieve her boyfriend, muttering 'idiot' under her breath as he begins reenacting Leo's famous 'King of the World' scene.

Madge scans the area for security, certain they'd be coming anytime now. Climbing on a display is usually frowned upon, they'd discovered that many years ago at the state fair.

Gale makes a derisive noise, turns his back just as Katniss reaches the boat, and goes back to his bows.

With Peeta's entertainment being ended, Madge wanders over to a display of various firearms. She doesn't care for guns, but there isn't anything else to do.

"Want to see something?"

The guy behind the counter is blond, tall and muscular, handsome in a way. He smiles at her, his eyes rake over her and she feels an unpleasant lurch in her stomach. She doesn't like the gleam in his eye. Her own eyes flicker to his badge, 'Cato'. He gestures to the line of guns locked up behind him, "We have them in pink too."

Lovely.

"Oh, no thanks."

She backs from the counter, down an aisle with hunting knives.

"Need a knife instead," he saunters down after her. Apparently he can't take a hint.

"I'm just waiting for a friend," she immediately looks around, searching for Katniss or Peeta, but they're nowhere to be seen, probably escaping security. Just her luck

"Boyfriend?" He leans his shoulder into the glass display, eyes fixed on her.

She doesn't even hesitate, just blurts out 'yeah' without thinking.

Cato looks disbelieving, smirks, takes a step forward. Madge feels her heart speed up, they're in the middle of a store, he can't do anything, but she's still on edge. She hates pushy people like him.

Madge gives him her sternest glare, tries channeling Katniss' 'go to hell' look. She's just going to tell him to back off or she'll get his manager. To her great surprise, though, without her uttering a word, he stops in his tracks.

A hand finds its way around her waist, pulls her roughly against something warm and solid. She catches a whiff of cologne and mint, toothpaste still on his breath, as Gale lets out a snort of irritation. She's never been so happy to hear his annoyed voice in her life.

"What're you doing?" He looks at Cato with more dislike than he'd ever even given Madge.

Cato's eyes narrow, flicker from Madge to Gale and back again.

"This your boyfriend?"

She nods. If it'll get Cato to back off she'll say Gale is her husband.

Gale's fingers flex into her stomach, tickling her a little, she shudders, trying to keep from giggling at the sensation.

"Huh," Cato chuckles coolly, "thought she looked a little dim." He smiles wickedly, "Perfect for you then, Hawthorne."

Madge lets out a little huff of irritation. She can't even form words, she's so agitated by the insult.

"Smart enough to know you're an asshole," Gale growls, pulls Madge tighter to him.

Wow. Way to defend my honor. At least he conceded she was a little smart. It was something she supposed.

Cato snickers, rolls his eyes at them, before heading to his counter. He turns back to them, gives Madge one more once over. "I'm not much for taking some disease infested bottom feeders sloppy seconds, but if you want to upgrade," he motions to his counter, "I'll be here."

Madge tries not to gag as Cato disappears around the corner, and hopefully out of her life.

Gale still has her tightly pressed to him, his hand still clenching in her stomach. She can feel his voice rumble against her back when he speaks, "What were you doing talking to that dick?"

Any feelings of gratitude are cooled with his implying she'd invited Cato's aisle stalking. Roughly, she shoves Gale's arm off her middle and steps away, turning to glare at him.

"I wasn't." She straightens her posture, trying to match his height a little, "He just started following me. I was trying to get away."

He rolls his eyes, "Good job there."

Of course he'd think she'd wanted Cato to follow her around like some kind of deranged mutt. Drooling all over her and looking at her like she was his next meal.

Her heart catches a little. Did she look like someone that would encourage that kind of thing? She'd just been trying to get away quietly. There was nothing wrong with that was there?

No, Gale was just messing with her. Being a jerk.

Madge grumbles to herself. She isn't going to stand here and fight with Gale with an entire display of deadly weapons right within eyesight. Giving him a dark look, she walks away, back in the marine section's direction to find Katniss and Peeta.

They come up the aisle as she passes a display of nuts with donkey on it. She stops and Gale plows into the back of her.

"Don't follow so close," she mutters, jerking away.

Peeta's brow wrinkles, he's about to ask what's wrong, but Madge shoots him a look. She doesn't want to talk about it. At least not right now.

Instead she gives him a scrutinizing look, "What took so long?"

Katniss' scowl deepens, "I had to convince security not to throw him out."

Peeta smiles sheepishly, gives his girlfriend an apologetic shrug, but Madge almost thinks getting kicked out of the store might've been his goal. How dare he not include her in his brilliant plan!

Still looking agitated, though to be fair she almost always looked like that a little, Katniss grabs Peeta by the arm and drags him back with her to the bows. Gale gives Madge a confused look as she brushes past him.

"Why are you mad at me for?" He hisses.

Madge bites her tongue. How dense was he?

"I helped you," he growls. She can hear something. If he were a normal person, someone with a heart instead of a lump of coal in his chest, she'd think it was hurt, but this was Gale. He didn't care if she's upset. His asking was some kind of short circuit in his wiring.

She doesn't stop, ups her speed to catch the other two. When she's close enough she jogs past them, she needs a break from Gale and his cluelessness, "I gotta go to the bathroom. Text me if you check out before I get back."

Before Katniss can roll her eyes and ask if she wants her to come too, even though Madge would rather Peeta escort her, Madge cuts through a section of insulated coveralls and around some bright orange jackets on her way to the bathroom.

She stays gone for a good ten minutes, wanders off to find a coke machine and immerses herself in a section of old fashioned candies before Peeta texts her that they're done finding the bow string and are ready to leave. That would be great, except she remembers she has to ride home with Gale.

Maybe Katniss and Peeta will let her tagalong on their date…

A sense of foreboding hanging over her head, she slowly makes her way to the front, to the registers, pays for her sour gummy worms, then, scraping her flip-flops across the ground, makes her way outside to find the others.

The sky is overcast, they'd been forecasting rain and it looks like they were right, she stares out at the thunderhead in the distance and sighs.

Someone whistles.

Madge looks over and sees the other three standing by a little pond. There are a few ducks in it and Madge imagines Gale and Katniss are discussing just how easy it would be to kill the poor things with their soon to be newly strung bows.

Still dragging her feet, Madge slowly makes her way to them.

"Having some gastrointestinal issues?" Peeta asks, grinning.

Madge holds up her sour worms. "Nope. Just doing some hunting of my own."

"Those are disgusting," Katniss cringes.

This from the girl who has admitted to eating squirrel, and liking it.

Peeta shoots an odd look in Gale's direction, Madge doesn't quite like it. It's like the two of them have a secret.

Looking at his watch, to Gale, then over to Madge, Peeta grimaces slightly, sensing the tension. He clears his throat, "We need to get going or the movie might sell out."

He pulls her into a hug and whispers in her ear, "You two going to make it?"

They'll be fine. It won't be the first silent ride she's had in her life, and silence with Gale is better than talking.

She smiles, "Yeah. Enjoy your date."

He doesn't look entirely satisfied, but Katniss punches him in the back, tells him to move it, so he gives her one last smile of encouragement before being dragged off.

Gale has his hands in his pockets, is staring at the ground at his feet, before his head jerks in the direction of the parking lot. "Well, come on."

Madge trails a few feet behind him, slowing down everytime he decreases his pace.

Finally, when they've both nearly stopped, he turns and looks at her.

"Uh, so, it was pointed out to me that you might've been a little offended that I said, that I, you know, implied you wanted, or, um, started the thing with Cato back there."

So he'd talked to Peeta. Not that Gale isn't smart, she's certain he's reasonably clever, he even seems to be good with people. Most of the time. Just not her. Peeta though, he's a genius with people, reads them like books. He could rule the world with his silver tongue, if he wanted to. Gale must've asked what he'd done so terribly wrong.

"I know you wouldn't start something with him." He begins rubbing his neck, a nervous habit she'd noticed he had. "He's an asshole. Always hit on Katniss until she put him in his place."

She crosses her arms, "I appreciate the help." She presses her lips into a thin line, "But I'm just as capable as Katniss at putting people 'in their place'."

His face settles into a scowl, "I know."

He doesn't though.

She may not be Katniss, tough as nails and full of venom, but she isn't some damsel in distress. Cato was just one more jerk she'd tell off, or would have, if Gale hadn't decided to ride up and help her out.

"You just…" He bites his lip, doesn't seem to have the words for what she is. "I'm sorry, okay. I didn't mean-you're too good for him and he gets under my skin and I just got…"

Madge doesn't really understand why he's apologizing. On the best of days he only seems to tolerate her. This slight should just roll off his back. It should…

He always does apologize, though, when he upsets her. It's endlessly confusing.

Gale Hawthorne is an enigma. One she doesn't foresee sorting out anytime soon.

The back of her mind prickles, she knows there's something she's missing, but she just can't see it yet.

"It's…fine, Gale." She rubs her hands on her arms, it's getting cooler. The rain is probably coming in.

He nods, not looking entirely happy with the acceptance, but turns to start back to his truck anyway.

The paint is peeling, it's rusty but reliable looking, just as it had been in high school.

"I'm fixing up another," he tells her. "Won't have to drive this one much longer." He opens the driver side door and gestures to it. "Get in on this side. The passenger door is catching."

Madge crawls in, scoots as far from the driver's seat as she can. Gale jumps in, reaches behind the seat and pulls out a blanket.

"Here," he holds it out to her.

She eyes it suspiciously, questioning its cleanliness in her mind.

"It's clean," he seems to read her mind. "Just…take it."

She does, spreads it on her legs and pulls it up to her middle, hiding her hands under it. A whiff of detergent floats up to her, fresh smelling, he must not have been lying about it being clean.

Gale turns on the radio, something loud and angry comes on as he backs out of the parking spot and shifts the truck into drive.

The not talking is almost pleasant, Gale taps a steady rhythm on the gear shift and Madge taps her foot. The song isn't bad really.

Looking down she sees his purchase in the floorboard, the bow string, for when he goes hunting…

"Gale?" She's still curious. "How do you use that fox urine?"

He groans.


	4. 24 hour shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

September, Freshman Year

It's probably a rule that college age girls should avoid supermarkets after a certain hour. Madge is certain of it the moment she steps foot into the discount Supercalifragilisticexpi-all-you-never-knew-you-wanted-and-more store.

Even Katniss looks a little frightened by the clientele creeping around the aisles.

"He ain't right," she mutters as they pass a man dressed in several layers of mismatched clothing, having a very serious discussion with a display of toasters.

"At least he's covered up," Madge gestures to another man in what looks to be the world's thinnest wife-beater, dubbing him the 'World's Greatest Lover' across the back, and a pair of cut-offs so short she's pretty sure parts of his anatomy are falling out.

Katniss, who has some exceptional aversion to nudity, cringes, "I'll get the 7-up. You get the medicine."

She takes off, in the opposite direction of the never-nude, toward the grocery section of the store.

Madge sighs and takes a left, past the line of shady looking people waiting to fill their prescriptions, then down past the acid reflux medications and supplements.

She picks up several boxes, reads through the list of ailments before calling Peeta.

"So do you have a headache, sore throat, nasal congestion, and cough, or headache, fever, stuffy nose, sinus pressure, and chest congestion?"

"I don't know," he grumbles, barely audible over the phone. "I think I'm dying."

He was so dramatic. "I'll get both, then you can overdose yourself on Tylenol."

"Sounds great."

He must drop the phone, it echoes harshly in her ear. She sighs and hangs up.

She tosses the medicine in her basket, and begins to push off, go find Katniss and help her fend off the gross half-dressed people, but when she takes the corner she hits something. Another basket.

"Oh, god, I'm sor-"

Her apology dies on her lips when she recognizes the driver of the other cart.

The pushy jerk from the sporting goods store. Great.

He smirks at her, his cold eyes flicker up and down, take in her sloppy pony tail, paint stained t-shirt, and ragged running shorts.

"Well if it isn't Hawthorne's sloppy seconds," he sneers. "You dropped that loser yet?"

Before she can stop herself she snaps, "No."

Cato, she thinks that was his name, laughs.

"Oh really? He lets a pretty little thing like you go out this late without anyone to watch your back?"

She isn't sure if he's threatening her, maybe he is, but he's in for a surprise if he tries anything, she has a little can of mace with his name written all over it in her purse. Madge would enjoy watching him dissolve into a sobbing mess if he so much as looked like he was going to touch her.

"I don't need permission. Or back up."

That was partly a lie. She hated going shopping alone, for this very reason. Jerks who didn't take 'no' for an answer.

"Hmm," he pushes forward, leans on his handles, grins at the sparse contents of her basket. "The master hunter got a little cold?"

Madge thinks about hitting him with her basket again, harder this time, but decides he's probably the kind of guy that likes that kind of thing.

"Get out of my way." She has a sick and pathetic Peeta to get back to and Katniss is probably dodging the cut-offs guy in the frozen food section by now.

His mouth turns up, "In a hurry? Or are you just programmed to go through things quick? I heard Hawthorne is a little fast on the draw."

She did not need that information, true or not.

"Gale has a lot more endurance than you do, trust me."

What did she just say and why?

"Oh?" Cato arches his eyebrows up, "Want to test out that theory?"

No, I don't, thank you very much.

"You would just embarrass yourself."

A deep laugh comes from behind her, a very familiar laugh…

Gale's hand slides around her waist, pulls her to him, her back colliding with his chest.

Why he's here she isn't sure, she'd been hoping to win this battle herself, but since Cato seems to think she's only some kind of prize and not an actual human being, she supposes Gale's help is useful.

His forearm wraps around her waist, presses into her stomach, as he leans down and rests his chin on her shoulder. Hot breath hits her neck as he nuzzles into it, she can feel his lips moving against her skin even though she has no idea what he's saying. Her mind is too foggy with his proximity.

"I said," Gale lifts his head from her shoulder, puts his lips to her ear, "Is this asshole bothering you again?"

A shiver runs up her spine, he has to feel it, he has her so closely pressed to his body.

"No," she almost whispers, though why she's whispering she isn't sure.

He presses his mouth to her collarbone, she feels his teeth scrap against her skin and nearly gasps.

They are in the middle of a supercenter for pity's sake!

She lets a nervous little giggle bubble out as she looks around, praying none of the weird old ladies that had been waiting on their medication had come around and seen the little display. They'd definitely need something for their heart rates and blood pressures if they had.

"Gale," she chastises him through gritted teeth. "We should get going."

Cato snorts, "Yeah, Hawthorne, wouldn't want you to waste your sixty seconds in the store. Poor girl will have to do all the work herself."

Madge gives him a scandalized look.

"Just because you can't bring your A-game everytime doesn't mean we all can't." Gale's hand drops a fraction, down to Madge's hip, gives it a squeeze. "Madge always leaves satisfied." He grins at Cato, "We're just in a hurry because we hit a little snag."

He reaches past her, snatches a box from the shelf. It takes her a second to realize what he's grabbed. Her mouth drops slightly when it hits her.

Gale's hand, the one not kneading into her hip, reaches up and closes her mouth, "Not yet, honey."

Did he just…

It takes every ounce of self-control she possesses not to elbow him in the ribs.

Cato sneers, "Yeah right. If she were going down on you I'd be able to see the evidence. Sores from someone with your level of infectiousness can't be easy to hide."

Madge feels her face burn on Gale's behalf.

Gale chuckles, "Whatever helps you sleep better at night, limp dick."

Cato laughs, hits Madge's basket with his one final time before disappearing towards the deodorant aisle.

Despite the fact that the menace is gone, Gale still has his arm wrapped around her, his fingers are still digging into her hip. She can smell his dinner on his breath with each puff he exhales. He's a little damp, smells faintly of sweat, maybe he'd just come from the gym on campus.

"You can let me go now." He was making her a little…uncomfortable.

He looks down, apparently hadn't realized he was still groping at her, and lets go, jumping back.

"Sorry."

"S'okay."

Madge can still feel her cheeks burning, presses her cold hands to them. Gale is in a pair of baggy gym shorts, a slightly baggy shirt with a 'v' of fading sweat down the front, from his neck down to his stomach. He had just come from the gym.

He looks a little darker than usual, she would almost swear he's blushing. He takes a breath, "He's lying, you know."

Madge isn't sure what he's talking about, she's a little preoccupied with her still stupidly racing heart. She wrinkles her nose, "What?"

"About, uh, sores." He is definitely blushing. "I don't have anything."

Why it's important to him that she know that, she isn't sure, but nods anyway, "Okay."

"I'm really careful-"

She doesn't care. Gale's sex life isn't something she wants any knowledge of. Not in the past, present, or future.

"I always use protection-"

He really needs to stop. There are elderly women shuffling around in the vicinity, though at this time of night they're probably crazy so it may not matter what they hear.

"I've never had anything-"

It makes not one lick of difference to her.

"I promise."

"Gale!" Madge groans, throws her hands up to stop any further confessions. "What you do with your 'best friend' is really not any of my business. I don't care if he's the cleanest, uh, you know, thingy in the country or the dirtiest."

He scowls, "I just didn't want you to think I was some kind of, I dunno, cesspool."

"I don't think you're a cesspool, Gale."

With his supposed list of conquests it's hard to believe he hasn't contracted something, but, again, it doesn't matter to her.

"And I do have stamina," he crosses his arms over his chest.

Can he just stop? He's giving her a lot of unnecessary information. Interesting, but wholly unnecessary.

She covers her face with her hands, presses her fingers to her eyes for a second, before letting them drop to her sides. They need a new topic of conversation. Fast. "Why are you here?"

He shrugs, pulls a coupon from his pocket, "Needed toilet paper."

Strange time to be buying that, but when the need arises, Madge supposes, the need arises.

Reaching into her basket, he tosses up one of Peeta's medicines, catches and examines it, then eyes her warily, "Someone sick?"

"Peeta, caught some flu bug we think." She backs her basket out of the aisle and takes off toward the grocery side, Gale striding beside her. "Katniss and I are picking up a few necessities for him."

She cuts him a look, wondering why he hasn't abandoned her yet, he'd done his chivalrous duty, rescued her from that jerk, he could go now.

His eyebrow knit together in a stern look, "Be more careful coming out this late at night, there are a lot of creeps out."

Madge wrinkles her nose, "I'm a big girl, and like I said, Katniss is with me."

Even if he thinks Madge is helpless, he certainly thinks much more highly of Katniss' abilities. Maybe she should show him her pepper spray…

"She isn't with you right now," he squints into the distance, past the toaster whisperer, searching for her missing roommate. "Do you know what happens to pretty girls that go out shopping at this time of night and wander off?"

She is very aware. She's an avid 'Dateline' watcher, thank you very much. But Peeta is 'dying' and she and Katniss don't want to catch whatever deadly illness he has apparently contracted. They needed disinfectant sprays and wipes before they were contaminated.

"Gale, I kno-" Wait. She stops and turns to him, narrows her eyes at him. "You think I'm pretty?"

His eyes widen just a fraction, then he settles back into a narrow scowl, "I meant Katniss."

"No, you said 'girls', plural, you meant both of us."

That's kind of a compliment. He kind of complimented her.

Gale seems to debate with himself, has an annoyed little curve on his lip, then sighs, "Fine." He lets his eyes flicker over to her, "I wouldn't kick you out of bed, alright?"

Madge snorts. She's pretty sure he's never kicked any girl out of his bed. Besides, it isn't as if she'd ever be in his bed in the first place.

When she's a half step from turning down the main aisle by the produce, Katniss appears out from behind a banana display. She gestures behind her with her thumb, "I think the weirdo in the cut-offs is following me."

"I don't think that's the same one," Madge squints into the distance. No, definitely a different one.

Katniss scowls, "How many creeps with their balls hanging out can there be?"

A lot apparently.

"What are you doing here, Gale?"

He holds up his coupon and Katniss nods. Her eyes flicker to the basket and she groans. Her hand reaches in and grabs the box Gale had thrown in earlier.

"Seriously? What is Peeta thinking?" She shoots Madge a look, "And I would think you would have more sense than to listen to him. He's just going to have to wait until he's better."

She puts the box, her two liter of 7-up, Clorox wipes, and a can of Lysol in the basket before grabbing it from Madge and taking off for the front of the store, grumbling about her sick, horny boyfriend.

Madge knows she should correct her, but since Peeta will probably be hopped up on cold medicine and won't remember if he asked her for anything weird or not, she decides to let it run its course. Watching Katniss ream him out while he giggled at the word 'condom' in his drugged up state would be worth it.

She turns to Gale, gestures to Katniss, "Guess I should follow my ride."

His face scrunches up and he nods, glancing back over his shoulder, "Do you need me to walk you out?"

"I got it covered," she opens her purse, pulls the pepper spray out. "Anyone tries anything and they're going down for the count."

He eyes the little red canister attached to her keychain, "Alright there 'Self-Defense Barbie', but maybe you should practice holding it the right way."

Her face warms. She'd bought it with the hope of never having to use it, so she had never actually looked at how she was supposed to handle it.

Gale takes the keychain from her and turns it before roughly shoving it back in her hand, "God, you'll end up blind."

Madge stuffs her spray back in her purse, feeling a little hurt. She was trying to be proactive. "You don't have to be such a jerk about it."

"When it's your life on the line…" He looks physically pained by her stupidity, "Okay, just look at shit before you use it. I don't want to hear about you on the news."

That's actually bordering on sweet. She gives him a tight smile, "Fine, I will."

"Good." He points to the front, to where Katniss is finishing checking out, "Catch up with her. You don't need to walk out by yourself."

Fine.

Feeling more than a little put out, Madge runs to the register and trails after the still grumbling Katniss.

She isn't certain, but she feels someone watching them as they walk out, put the sacks in the car, and get in. When they pull out she's positive she sees a gym shorts wearing stalker just inside the sliding doors.

"We are never shopping this late again," Katniss mutters as one of the cut-off posse sluggishly crosses in front of her.

Madge nods, "Definitely not."


	5. Down for the count

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

March, Freshman Year

It was all their neighbor and Madge's self-defense instructor, Annie Cresta's fault. She provided the means and opportunity.

She'd giving them tickets to the newest club in town. Well, it was less of a club and more of a bar.

No…it was a bar. A poorly lit, hot, smelly, absolutely filthy, bar down a narrow back alley at the edge of campus. It had a bouncer, a frightening woman with pointed teeth and all black leather clothing, a VIP line, private rooms, and the most obnoxious strobe lights Madge had ever encountered.

I'm going to regret this.

"I could be writing my paper for my non-western civ class," Madge grumbled. She was finished with it, actually, but she hated the crowds and the closeness, the flashing lights and the heavy, opaqueness of the air. It was making her claustrophobic.

Gale came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, let his chin press into her neck before whispering, "Bullshit."

She deflated a little. Of course he would remember she was done with her work.

"Fine, I just don't like the band." Which was a bit of a lie. They weren't bad. Local and a little unusual, but good. It was the atmosphere she didn't like. She would've rather been back on one of their couches, curled into him, watching some dumb movie, without all the drunks and half-dressed idiots running around, spilling drinks on her and invading her space.

Gale took a long drink of his beer and Madge cringed as a drop leaked out the side of his mouth. He quickly wiped it, gave her a sheepish look. "Sorry."

Frowning, she spun on her barstool, let the room twirl around her. Annie was there with her husband, Finnick, a DJ on a local radio station, the source of the tickets. He was always getting invites to new and interesting places. They were disgustingly cute, hugging and kissing in a dark corner.

Then she saw Katniss and Peeta up near the stage. Peeta was dancing, Katniss had her hands over her face in embarrassment.

"Is Mellark doing the cabbage patch?"

He was. It was glorious.

"I think he's doing a mix," Madge stopped her seat and grinned as Peeta began his own rendition of the running man.

"What does Katniss see in him?"

Peeta went into Hammer Time.

Gale lost it, snorted into his beer and sloshed a healthy portion of it, past Madge, onto the already sticky floor.

"Watch where you're throwing that, jackass!"

It was Glamour, or was it Glitter? Madge couldn't remember.

"Sorry," Gale grinned, a little drunkenly.

Madge gave Glinda, no that wasn't right, that was too normal, a small smile, "He really is sorry." She took the beer from Gale's hand, "I think you've had enough."

He dipped in, let his hands slip into the back pockets of her jeans, as he kissed her neck, "I'm sorry."

He probably didn't even know what he'd done, he had the memory of a goldfish when he was even a little drunk.

"This jerk-off messing with you, Glimmer?"

Glimmer! How did Madge keep forgetting that name?

Turning, she saw a person whose name she didn't have any trouble remembering.

"Oh, well if it isn't the master hunter and his sloppy second," Cato snickered.

Madge was about to tell him she thought he had a misunderstanding of what his nickname for her meant, but was stopped short by Gale making a threatening noise and pulling her from her stool. She almost lost her footing, but landed face first into Gale's chest instead. "Ow."

Cato made a harsh noise, sneered at them. "Don't worry, shit for brains, I wouldn't go after her. No telling what she's picked up sleeping with your crab trap."

Glimmer let out a loud, very unladylike laugh, it lasted a little too long, was a little too high.

Gale rolled his eyes, "My date is smart enough to notice that crap. Can you say the same about yours?"

That cut off Glimmer's annoying laugh. She raised her hand, as if to slap Gale, but stopped short when Cato caught her arm.

"Don't waste your energy, Glim," he let his hand drop, smirked at Gale. "He's just a charity case. Grew up in a shack in the middle of the woods. Probably didn't learn to piss in a pot until he came here. Hell, probably had to take a special class just to learn about how to use indoor plumbing. They just let him in to meet some loser quota, you know? Probably why she's dating him, too. Feels bad for him."

Gale's face, even in the horrible lighting of the bar, went darker. Glimmer's annoying laugh came back.

Madge saw red.

It was one thing to doubt Madge, she was use to that. Her intentions were always under the microscope since she'd grown up better off than most of her classmates. It didn't bother her anymore really.

But picking on Gale for something like that, how he'd grown up. That was beyond what she could tolerate.

"Gale got into school on his brains, which is more than I can assume about either of you MENSA candidates." She jabbed a finger into Cato's chest, "If the worst thing you can say about him is that he's pulled himself up by his bootstraps, then you need to reassess your thought system because that's not a bad thing."

Madge turned, a little shocked at her own boldness, and grabbed a now gaping Gale by the arm. They were leaving, she'd had enough social interaction for the month, maybe the year.

"Woah there, Mad Dog," Cato called from behind her. "His super syphilis already eaten your brain?"

Gale made a noise, his nostrils flared as he turned with his fist already up, ready to hit the waste of air, but Madge's foot beat him to it.

It was one of the target areas Annie had taught them during the self defense class Madge had taken, months ago, after Gale had pointed out she didn't really know how to use her mace. She didn't think she'd ever have to use it, but a lifetime of real life crime dramas and Law & Order reruns had made her paranoid enough that when her bubbly neighbor had offered, Madge had taken her up.

This wasn't quite self-defense, not by a long shot, but Cato definitely deserved it.

Cato's knees bent and his hands cupped the very sensitive area of his anatomy Madge's Sperry clad foot had just kicked.

Seeing the opportunity, Madge took a swing, hit his nose, causing it to erupt with blood as he toppled over onto the beer covered floor.

Glimmer let out a high pitched wail and threw her hands dramatically to her face.

Katniss was watching, wide eyed from below the stage, and Peeta, arm still up, mid sprinkler, was gaping at the scene.

Annie, who had crawled up on the bar, had her fist in the air, then brought her elbow down violently and yelled, "Give him the 'People's Elbow', Mad!"

Madge, her mouth dropped in horror at what she'd just done, was not giving Cato the 'People's Elbow', whatever that was, or any kind of elbow for that matter.

Gale grabbed her by the hand and began dragging her out.

"We should run before security catches us," he tells her as he half carries her through the gaping onlookers.

They manage to make it past the leather clad bouncer, wiggled out the exit and to the alley, then down past the dumpsters to the street.

Gale still had a death grip on her hand, her fingers began going numb, as he drug her down the road, toward the non-VIP parking lot for the club, which was unfortunately located two blocks away.

Madge took a deep breath, enjoying the much cooler, much fresher air outside the club. Then the horrible realization of what she'd done hit her.

She'd beat up a guy! Not that he didn't kind of deserve it, but still.

The air suddenly didn't feel so refreshing.

When her feet shuffled to a stop and she pulled her now clammy hand from Gale's, he turned back to her.

"Madge we need to get to the car."

She put her hands to her knees, dropped her head down to catch some air. This was a disaster. Why had she let Cato bait her like that? Why hadn't she just walked away?

"Oh, god, I shouldn't've kicked him, and I definitely didn't need to hit him." She was going to be in so much trouble. He hadn't been hurting her or Gale physically, just being his obnoxious self, she had no defense for what she'd done.

"Madge? Are you okay?" Gale dropped down, crouching in front of her. His warm hands cupped her face, thumbs traced under her eyes, smearing something across her cheeks. "Don't cry over that jerk."

She shook her head, tried to bat away a few of the tears that squeezed out.

"He deserved it," Gale pulled her up, tugged her into a hug. It was hard to argue with him, partly because he sounded so certain, but mostly because he had her face pressed into his chest. He still had the scent of beer and the sickly sweet smell from the fog machine from the club clinging to him, and she could feel traces of his sweat prickling through his shirt, pressing to her lips and tingeing them with a salty taste.

"That was pretty badass, you know?" He pulled back, grinned down at her.

It wasn't, at least not in Madge's mind.

"I beat up a defenseless man, Gale. That's not badass, that's battery." She was a criminal. In her mind a Lennie Briscoe type detective was already examining the scene of the crime, letting forensics gather evidence, questioning the dozens of witnesses, making silly one-liners. Some Jack McCoy like figure was going to throw the book at her. "What's the maximum prison time allotted for beating up a guy in a bar?"

"Cato is hardly defenseless. He's an asshole. I doubt this is the first time he's had his nuts knocked in and I doubt it'll be the last." Gale rolled his eyes, "And they aren't going to send you to jail for a bar fight. We got out of there before the cops showed up, if the club even wants them there for a one sided brawl, and they aren't going to waste their time hunting you down. They have better things to do. Trust me, do you know how many bars Thom and me have had to run from?"

She didn't, and that was probably for the best. If there was one thing about she and Gale's relationship she was proudest of it was that he had calmed down some, wasn'tquite as hot headed, and she liked to think she might've had something to do with that.

"Cato is the kind of jerk that'll hunt me down himself and press charges."

"Cato is the kind of jerk that'll protect his pride," Gale corrected her. "He'll probably make you sound like some kind of hairy giant. He won't hunt you down or press charges because he won't want his friends to see who really knocked him on his ass."

Her stomach still churned uncomfortably, "How do you know?"

Gale shrugged, "'Cause if you kicked my ass like you did his, that's what I would do."

That gets her to laugh. A little bubbly, watery sounding thing, but it's still a laugh.

Someone pulled up, honked their horn at them.

"Get a room!" Peeta laughed. He was just barely visible in the backseat of the car,. His face was pressed to the headrest just to look out at them.

It's was a very expensive, very well kept, and incredibly fast looking car. It was also familiar for some reason.

Annie leaned across the passenger, a somewhat tired looking Finnick, and grinned at the two. They must've been in VIP parking back at the club.

"Madge, that was a thing of beauty."

Madge grimaced, "I shouldn't have hit him. He was all talk."

"Who cares!" Annie laughed, "If he said something bad enough to make you kick his balls into the next District, then he definitely deserved it."

"I will never make fun of those self-defense classes ever again," Katniss tells her, squeezing her head between the front seats to peer out the window.

"Hey, I may take those self-defense classes," Peeta says, looking at a highly pleased Annie.

Finnick gives her a little grin, "But you can never go back to that club. Enobaria has a pretty good set of eyes. She'll rip out your throat if she sees you get too close to her door ever again."

That was the first bright spot Madge had sensed in the whole disaster of a night. At least now she was guaranteed to not to have to go back to that hellhole.

"Get in!" Peeta gestured wildly, "It's the unicorn, Madge!"

That was why it looked familiar! The chase scene in 'Gone in 60 Seconds' was their favorite.

"It's 'Eleanor'!"

Peeta beamed at her, nodding. Neither she nor Peeta knew cars, but they knew 'Eleanor'.

Madge saw Katniss shoot Gale a confused look. They just didn't know movies like Peeta and Madge.

"Just like in the original," Peeta nodded.

"Where did you get it, Annie?" This wasn't just any car.

"It's mine," Annie ran her hand over the dash. "I just keep it in storage mostly. Not very practical with the baby."

Gale rolled his eyes at Madge and Peeta's continued admiring of the car, "Okay, well where in 'Eleanor' are we supposed to sit?"

"Unless you're afraid your girlfriend's bloodlust hasn't been sated, then just let her sit on your lap. It's only for a block," Finnick gestured to the already cramped looking back seat.

Gale eyed the car suspiciously then the driver. Annie was a notoriously bad driver, even when she was in her normal clunker.

He was probably remembering Madge telling him riding with Annie was a religious experience. If you didn't find yourself praying to a higher power with her behind the wheel, you never would.

He grabbed Madge's hand, "Why don't we just walk? It's nice out."

Madge looked up and down the road, still expecting the District's finest to be coming for her, but no blue and red flashing lights were coming down the road.

"Come on, while you're still a free woman," he teased, his lips brushing up against her ear.

She punched him in the shoulder and glared, "Don't mess with me. I've proven I'm a danger to society."

"Suit yourself," Finnick shrugged.

"Punch it, Annie!" Peeta yelled from the back seat.

"Don't," Katniss warned. "It's only a block. I would like to survive, please."

Annie seemed to like Peeta's idea better, because she pealed out, leaving a little of the rubber from her tires on the pavement.

Gale wrapped his arm around Madge's shoulder, began sauntering the block to the parking lot.

"So," he grinned down at her, "if we get attacked you're going to protect lil ole me, right?"

Madge snorted, "Of course, no one's messing with you while I'm around."

Gale laughed, she could feel it vibrate through his chest.

"Good." He dipped in and pressed a kiss to her lips, "So what does my hero want for her reward?"

Sighing, Madge bit her lip, "Ice cream?" She jutted her lip out; she could really use some Cherry Garcia right about now.

Gale smirked, "I think I have something better."

"I don't think there is anything you have that's better than ice cream."

He looked a little offended, "Really?" His hands began to work their way under the hem of her shirt, "You reallythink that?"

Madge fought off a laugh, his fingers tickled at her sides. "Maybe…"

"Maybe?" He heaved her up, one arm behind her back and the other under her knees. "I'll get you some stupid ice cream, but then I'm gonna prove I'm better than it."

Madge battled a smile, "Oh, really?"

Maybe she didn't regret the night all that much.

But if Madge ended up doing five years in the slammer for battery, then it was Annie's fault.


	6. Coffee Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

August, Freshman Year

Madge is wearing a tank top. She keeps shivering.

Gale squints in the poor lighting of the library, through the racks, over to her table. He can only see her back, her hair is loose and scattered, tangled where she's constantly running her hands through it in frustration over whatever it is she's reading. The shirt is blue, dark, but her bra underneath, which he hadn't been looking for but couldn't help but notice, was pale peach, and kept dropping down her shoulder on the right. Everytime she reaches over and pushes it up he finds himself wishing he could do it for her.

Swallowing down some coffee, black, no sugar, no creamer, he saunters over to the table. She doesn't notice him behind her, she's too engrossed in her reading, something for her history class by the looks of it, so he leans over and blows gently just behind her ear.

It startles her, she jumps a little, turning and glaring back at him.

Her nose wrinkles for a second, considering him, before turning back to her book, "What do you want, Gale?"

Dropping into the seat next to her, the side with the loose bra strap, he lets one arm rest in front of her, blocking her book, while the other wraps around the back of her chair. His fingers can just tease the loose ends of her hair without her noticing it.

"It's freezing in here, isn't it?"

He makes sure that his warm breath brushes across her shoulders, stirs up her hair, as he whispers. Goosebumps are already on her arms, tantalizingly within his reach.

Madge studiously ignores him, pushes his arm off her book. Her hands are freezing.

"You're an icicle!" Why isn't she wearing a coat, or maybe some gloves…

She shrugs, continues with her note taking, turning her head from him.

Scowling, Gale covers her papers with his hands. Wrinkling her nose, she tries again to free her notes, but he snatches them away, pulls them to himself.

"Wha-give those back!" She snaps, her icy hands grabbing towards the papers.

His free hand catches her wrists, pull them to his chest and causing her to tumble forward. With a little growl, she pushes him back, his chair makes a loud screeching noise when she does so, earning them a glare from a boy several table over.

Madge gives him a weak, conciliatory smile, before turning back to Gale and holding out her hand, "Give me my notes."

Gale hides the papers behind his back, "You need to get warmed up."

Her eyes roll upward, toward the crappy lights overhead, "Fine, I'll study outside."

Was she nuts? It was hot as hell out there, she'd have a heatstroke.

"Just come get some coffee." She could wrap her hands around the cup and maybe get some circulation back in her fingers.

Shaking her head and huffing, she makes another grab for her notes, her freezing fingers wrapping around his bicep and trying to pull his arm from behind his back. When it becomes abundantly clear she won't get him to budge, she narrows her eyes and her lower lip puckers out. "Fine."

#######

It takes ten minutes to get her out of the library, she keeps trying to sneak into his backpack and free her very neatly written notes, but when he threatens to stuff them down the front of his pants she pouts, but stops.

Gale pays for her drink, something stupid and frou-frou that he's almost embarrassed to give money for, but when she takes her first drink, gets a little dollop of cream on her nose, he decides it's worth it.

She gives him a haughty look, "It's called a Belgian dip."

When Gale's expression flickers in confusion she smiles brightly. Then she starts laughing, muttering something that sounds like 'Peeta would've got it'.

That annoys him. It's one of she and Peeta's movie things. Even though he knows she and Katniss' dopey boyfriend are just friends, he still hates that they have some kind of weird bond.

"It's 'Austin Powers'," he says. Everyone and their dog has seen that movie.

Her smile fades a little at his tone and she starts to wipe the foam from the tip of her nose. Before she gets the napkin up, though, Gale reaches across the table with his own napkin and cleans it for her. Her expression freezes for a second, like she isn't sure what she's supposed to say, so Gale tosses the napkin at her. "God, you're messy."

Mouth turning down, she puckers her lip again, "I was getting it myself."

He knew that, he just really wanted to touch her, even if it was through the barrier of a napkin. His hand still tingles where he'd held her wrists, and his chest, in the center where she'd shoved him, burned warmly.

Shrugging, Gale takes a long drink from his cup of black coffee.

They drink in silence for a few minutes. Gale stares as Madge looks out the window, watching students milling by, backpacks slung over their shoulders. Her lips purse, press together and part, pale blue eyes flicker as they follow different people.

Gale wishes he were better at small talk. He wants to ask her how her first semester is going, if she likes her classes, her professors, made any new friends, though hopefully no boys…

"Do, uh, you and Katniss like those apartments?"

He doesn't, not really. They're not safe, at least not in his mind. Katniss tells him Mellark stays over a lot, but, honestly, that doesn't offer him much comfort. Katniss is more capable of protecting them than that dork. But…he didn't like the dorms either. They were too unsecured for his liking. All those hormonal bastards in too close quarters to Madge made him queasy.

"Okay I guess."

When Madge is almost done with her drink, he pulls the notes out of his backpack, tosses them across the table to her.

He catches her fingers when she reaches for them, assuring himself their warm.

She jerks back, wide eyed, fingers just barely pulling the papers to her.

Gale gives her a little smirk, tries to catch her fingers again, but she pulls them and her papers to her chest.

A little sigh escapes her lips, "I, uh, gotta get back to the library." She pushes some of her hair behind her ear, "I have more reading to do."

As she stands, grabs her bag and keeps her notes close to her, Gale pulls a jacket from his bag. He hands it to her, "Don't undo all my work."

Madge's eyebrows knit together, not really understanding what he means, so he gives the jacket a shake.

"I paid good money for that dumbass drink of yours. You go back in that icebox and turn into a human popsicle then what good was it."

None. That's what good it will have done.

She makes a face, but takes the jacket, lays it over her arm, "I'll have Katniss give it back to you."

It takes a great deal of effort for him to not tell her to keep it. He likes the idea of a piece of him being with her, a bit of protection when she's alone.

Instead, he just grunts.

She wouldn't appreciate his protectiveness, especially considering she thinks he's a grade-A jerk.

He is a grade-A jerk to her most of the time, because he needs to be.

Madge is too good for him, smart and sweet and painfully naïve. He doesn't deserve to be her protector, no matter how much he wants the job. She deserves someone so much better.

Her nose wrinkles, he loves it when she makes that face, and she lets a little puff of air out, "Ugh, to you too." She takes a few steps, "Thanks for warming me up." Her face turns a lovely shade of red, "I meant-I mean, thanks for making me warm. I mean for the coffee that made me warm-"

Gale's never seen anyone's cheeks blaze as brilliantly red as Madge's at that moment, never seen anyone as adorably flustered.

Her words stumble over themselves for a few more seconds, she can't seem to get her tongue and lips to function to her liking, before finally sighing and shaking her head.

"Thanks for the coffee."

He considers needling her, keeping the slowly fading blush from disappearing from her face, but decides against it. They're in college now, he's doing well in his classes, far better than he had in high school, he might get on his feet eventually. He might be good enough for her someday.

With a final grunt he watches her go, his jacket slung over her arm.

A small smirk twitches on his lips when he notices her bra strap has slipped down again and she's stealthily trying to push it up. Maybe someday he'll get his chance to push it up himself.


	7. Lunch date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

June after Freshman Year

Madge felt she may have made a grave mistake taking a seven-thirty am class during the summer.

What was done was done, though, and she was already a week in, so there was no point in dropping now.

At least she didn't have to do an entire semester of it during the fall. A lighter class load was nothing short of a godsend, especially considering she'd put off her math requirement the last two semester. She would definitely need a little extra time for a calculus course.

It's also a good thing her amazing boyfriend is so good with his fancy calculator. Gale is definitely going to be helpful come fall.

The Microbiology professor, a thin woman who seemed to enjoy interspersing her slides with pictures of her children and dog, finally closed out the lesson, smiling brightly at them.

"I'll see everyone in an hour for lab!"

She would not. Madge had yet to see her during lab. The only people that ever taught that were the three perpetually exhausted looking TAs. They would explain what the students were supposed to do, cut them loose, then check their work after an hour, give or take. If their work was even marginally passable, they got a pass for the day.

"None of you are majors," the head TA, the most bored of them all, explained. "This shouldn't make or break you."

As long as they made it through two months without releasing a biological apocalypse on the campus, passing grades for all. At least that's how Madge interpreted it.

Quickly, she gathered her notes, stuffed them in her folder and into her backpack, before rushing out the door. If she was quick she could get to the vending machine and get a highly nutritious, cheap, and portable breakfast item and a coke. Breakfast had been the furthest thing from her mind when she'd rolled out of bed that morning and her stomach was voicing its displeasure with that choice.

The moment she steps out the double doors, into the still early morning sun and the blissfully fresh air, she takes a deep breath.

Then someone comes up behind her, grabs her backpack and nearly makes her tumble backward.

Gale starts laughing, "God, you don't have to carry the entire library with you."

He has her back on her heels, tipped into him. She wrinkles her nose up at him, narrows her eyes.

"I don't. We have to bring our lab manual." And the stupid thing weighs as much as she does.

With a little push, he has her back on her feet, pulling her backpack from her shoulders. "Let me take it."

Her back is instantly grateful.

He wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulls her to him, kissing the top of her hair. She's about to tip her face up, kiss his jaw, when he thrusts a bag into her hands.

"Brought you breakfast."

Smiling, she takes it, opening it to find a biscuit and a hashbrown. He pulls a bottle of orange juice out for her from under his arm.

"Yay! Sweaty!" She mock cheers as she takes it.

"Just the way you like it," he kisses her cheek. It's clearly been a few days since he's shaved, the little bristly whiskers on his chin scratch against her skin, leaving a patch of pink on her face. He frowns at it, rubs his hand across his jaw. "Sorry."

Madge shrugs, pulling the hash brown out and taking a large bite, "I's ow-kay."

Gale pushes her mouth shut, feigning disgust, "Were you raised in a barn?"

She nods, grinning.

They take a seat on one of the benches, in front of the building with Madge's lab. Gale pulls out some papers, something to do with his internship, and studies them while Madge polishes off the biscuit, offering Gale a bite or two.

"You need to eat," he scowls at her. "This business about not eating when you're in class is bullshit."

Madge frowns down at the hashbrown, "I was going to get something, but you brought this."

"A Snickers, Funyuns, and a Dr. Pepper, isn't a good breakfast."

She arches her eyebrows up, "I'll have you know I was going to get Cheetos and a Sprite."

And a Snickers.

His eyes roll so hard she's pretty sure he's going to get a headache from it. "You need to take a nutrition class. Help you make better dietary choices."

Her nose wrinkles up, "I make excellent dietary choices."

She'd had a footlong sub the night before for dinner, with banana peppers on it. That was both a vegetable and a fruit, she's pretty sure, thank you very much.

Gale's expression is skeptical. He's fully aware Madge is not exactly a culinary artist. If it takes half a pound of sugar and butter, she's got it. Can she call it in? Perfect. Anything threatening to be healthy is out of her skill set.

Taking the napkin the biscuit had been wrapped in, she waves it at his face. "Fine, I'll get something better for lunch."

Pizza encompassed several food groups. That ought to make Gale happy.

Grinning, he props his leg up against the back of the bench, pulls Madge to him, trapping her between his legs, "You bet you will." He nips at the skin below her ear, "I have an hour for lunch, I'm coming by and taking you somewhere that doesn't provide toys in kids' meals."

Madge tilts her head back, shoots him a glare, "I'll have you know, I've gained vast amounts of knowledge from my Sonic Smart Cubes."

Most practically useless, but vast none the less.

Eyes rolling skyward, Gale runs his hand along the edge of her shirt, his fingers skimming the skin underneath. His teeth graze along her neck, "I promise, you'll like it."

That wasn't playing fair. Not at all. How was she supposed to say no to that kind of argument?

It was going to be a mistake. Gale wasn't quite as bad as Annie with her love of all things crunchy and refusal to eat anything that had been grown outside a day's drive, but Madge had seen him try Kale chips, so he was pushing it.

Sighing, she nods. She'll go to whatever horrible all-natural hole-in-the-wall he'd found. She was taking something heavily processed and sugary, though, to sustain her until she could get to her stash of poptarts at home.

He brightens, kisses her cheek, "You're going to love it.

She greatly doubts that.

#######

It wasn't as bad as she'd expected.

Madge had picked a chicken and avocado sandwich, it had been the only food combination she hadn't been wary of, and it wasn't bad.

"They grow almost everything local," Gale tells her. "And what they don't, they get from the closest markets."

It was also close enough to campus that Madge could walk there during lunch. Hint, hint.

It would've been easier to dismiss it if it had been expensive, but Gale was nothing if not good at finding cheap eats. The prices were reasonable considering the kind of food they were providing, and they had a student discount.

Damn.

"Fine, I'll come eat here some." Maybe once a week.

He doesn't look like he believes her exactly, his mouth turns down. Madge reaches over and wipes a bit of the sauce from his nasty looking fish sandwich from the corner of his mouth.

"Promise?"

"Yes." She pokes the weird orange looking fries, "I don't see what the big deal is. I grew up eating the way I eat. You're going to throw off my internal mechanisms if you keep trying to change my patterns." She juts her lower lip out, "Can't you just love me, bad eating habits and all?"

Gale presses his fingers to his eyes, lets out a long sigh. After a long moment, his hands drop, fixing Madge in a stern look.

"I do love you. But I want you to be healthy, and eating like a teenage boy is bad for you." He sits back and crosses his arms.

This from the guy who eats all kinds of unspeakable creatures.

"You're going to end up sick. Skipping meals and all that processed crap."

For a second Madge just stares at him, letting a little smile creep up her face. She may not like it, but Gale's insistence on making her eat gross, so-called healthy food was just one of his weird ways of showing affection. Even if it often felt like punishment.

"Aw," she reaches across the table, takes his warm, rough hand and pulls it toward her. "You're such a good boyfriend."

His face darkens a little and he pulls her hand to him, up to his lips, "I am, aren't I?" He kisses her knuckles, "Do I get some kind of reward for being such a good boyfriend?"

Lips twisting up to the side, Madge gives the question careful consideration.

"Well, I suppose if you get me a snowcone on the way home from work, even though it's not really good for me…"

He snorts, rolls his eyes, "I think if I can get one non-fast food or vending machine based meal down you a day, I'll consider it a win."

"Strawberry shortcake?" That was her favorite flavor.

His feet catch hers under the table, give her a little jerk toward him, "Only if you share."

"Now you're pushing it."

They get to-go bags, Gale will probably eat the rest of her now cold sandwich for dinner tonight, then get up, toss some money on the table, and head out. Gale has to get back to work and Madge has homework.

"So about my reward," he laces his fingers with hers, tugging her back toward the main campus. "It's Friday, so how about a sleep-over?"

Madge narrows her eyes, "A 'sleep-over', huh?"

Right.

Grin widening, Gale nods, "Yeah, no work in the morning or classes…"

Madge gets the distinct impression Gale has very little sleep planned in their 'sleep over'. Her nose wrinkles, "Are we going to build a fort in the living room? Make s'mores?"

His arm sneaks around her waist, "We can do somethingin the living room, and maybe make a kind of s'more."

Head tossing back, Madge laughs, "Subtle, Gale, really subtle."

Nose nuzzling into her hair, he kisses her. She can smell whatever horrible combination was on his sandwich on his breath when he laughs at her.

Gale, she decides, is definitely an amazing boyfriend. Even if he makes her eat weird foods and has a very poor understanding of what a sleep-over is.

A wide yawn escapes her mouth and she gives Gale a sheepish little smile.

Her seven-thirty class may give him an education in the true meaning of a sleep-over after all.


	8. Medieval on you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Early May, Freshman Year

Gale really doesn't understand the draw of the Medieval Fair. Neither does Katniss, and for some reason that baffles Madge and Peeta.

"This is right up your alley," Peeta waves out at the ridiculously dressed fair patrons. "They like archery, you like archery. They like to hang around for days on end, wallowing in their own filth, you guys like to hang around for days on end, wallowing in your own filth-"

"We go hunting," Gale corrects him, tersely. There was a big difference between hunting filth and the weirdos running around in front of them.

The idiot made it sound like Gale and Katniss enjoyed being dirty for dirtiness' sake. If he had a stealthy bone in his clumsy body he could go hunting with him and then he'd understand that it wasn't exactly convenient to bathe when you were tracking something at deer camp.

Madge patted Gale on the shoulder, "Maybe you and Katniss can sign up for the archery contest."

They couldn't. The roster had filled up two days earlier, they'd checked. Not that Gale would've wanted to sign up for the stupid thing anyway…

Peeta picks up a wooden sword, a cheap little thing for the kids to whack each other with, and pokes Gale in the side.

"Come on Gloomy Gale, it's fun!"

Gale swats the flimsy wood out of Peeta's hand.

Apparently seeing the danger of letting Peeta jab her boyfriend with tiny medieval replica toys, Madge takes Gale by the hand and pulls him along behind her.

The entire place stinks of fried food and animals. There are pony rides off in the far corner, and he can see jousters on horseback. The entire walking park is going to be covered in horse manure by the end of the weekend.

There's a living chess set, Madge wants to watch it, something about it reminding her of Harry Potter. He isn't sure what that means.

People are dressed as everything from the dirtiest, lowliest peasants to elaborately made up court members. Gale sees Madge watching them wistfully. Girls and their fantasies about the middle ages, don't they know it's also called the 'dark ages' for a reason? He's pretty sure it sucked for the vast majority.

He feels a little guilty thinking it, but Madge is too sweet, too soft, she wouldn't have lasted in the real middle ages.

Madge stops at a booth of women braiding hair, intricate looking creations with ribbon and flowers. She watches them for a minute before biting her lip and turning to Gale, "I'm going to get my hair done."

He likes her hair down, it's soft and it calms his nerves to toy with it, but she looks so excited that all he can do is shrug. Whatever makes her happy.

As Madge plops down on the little stool, telling the women what color ribbon she wants woven in her hair, Gale wanders over to a booth with a massive display of swords. Real swords, not wooden ones like Peeta had been screwing around with.

Gale lifts one, examines the hilt.

"Good morrow good sir! I see you've found my fine wares."

A grubby looking man dressed like he's just stepped out of some poor community project play comes up beside him, clapping him on the shoulder.

"You look to be a man of fiery resolve and steely nerves." He gestures to another rack, "Perchance you should like to look at a more sturdy sword?"

More like more expensive.

Gale shakes his head, "No thanks."

The man doesn't back down though.

"So sure are you?" He picks up a heavy looking creation, balances it on his hand. "Look! See the craftsmanship!"

"Uh, yeah."

Gale knows nothing about swords other than what he'd learned watching Pirates of the Caribbean marathons with Madge, so whether or not the 'craftsmanship' is impressive or not he isn't sure.

"NO?" The man yells, spit flickering in Gale's face. He reaches for another sword. It's really beginning to get annoying.

"Look, mister, I don't want a sword." He doesn't need one either, especially not at those prices.

"Thou, young sir, be a grizzled, eye-offending pignut!"

"What?" Was that even a real insult?

Gale takes a step back, this guy has to be pretty drunk to already be sputtering out that kind of nonsense at ten in the morning. Plus they were surrounded by weapons. Gale had been in enough bar fights to know drunks with pointy objects were a bad combination.

Before the crazy sword peddler can really work himself up, spout off more logic-less insults, Madge comes up behind Gale and grabs him by the back of the shirt, pulling him from what is sure to be a fight. Though probably a short one. Gale had the advantages of being both young and sane.

"I can't let you out of my sight for five minutes can I?" Her nose wrinkles up as she looks up at him.

"I was just looking." It isn't his fault the people at the booths are pushier than that lotion guy at the kiosk in the mall.

He squints down at her, examines the delicate looking way the women have braided her hair. She takes his hand and does a little twirl, letting him get a better look, though honestly, in her fluttery little sundress, her hair is hardly the focus of his attention.

Still, her hair isn't bad, but he still prefers it down, or at least just in her normal ponytail.

"Let's go check out some other booths" Madge pulls him along.

#######

Gale's never seen so many dragons. Not real dragons, but metal and wood, stuffed animals, in wind chimes and incense burners and lawn ornaments. Then there are what he assumes are fairies.

He isn't sure what the point of all of it is. He's never been much for fantasy. Reality has enough weirdness to keep him occupied, he doesn't need make-believe creatures taking up residence in his orderly world.

Madge puts a little crown on her head, examines herself in an overly ornate mirror. "Do you like it?"

Eyes widening, Gale looks her over. She might not have survived the dark ages, middle ages, medieval period, whatever the hell this stupid fair is supposed to be about, but she would've made one gorgeous princess.

His hands run up her sides, tug her against him, "Does it have a matching bra and panties?"

"I don't think I would want to wear any undergarments I could buy out here."

Turning and taking a look at the overweight man apparently running the booth, Gale suddenly feels inclined to agree. He lets her go, she's walks back to the crown display, so Gale begins examining some chainmail in the next booth over.

"See anything that interests you, good sir?"

Not another one.

Didn't they know people liked to look without being hounded?

"Just looking," Gale quickly tells him. Just leave me alone. Walk away.

Arms come up around him. If it's the man running the booth Gale's done with this place.

The hands are small, delicate with silver polish on the nails. Madge presses her face into his back, "Going to be a knight?"

Putting the chainmail down, Gale turns and scoops her up, carries her carefully out from under the little canopy. "I'm going to be your knight in shining armor."

Her nose wrinkles, "No, you would have the most filthy armor ever." Her eyes flicker over to a dragon statue, it's as tall as Gale is. "And if dragons were real, you'd have the most charred armor."

Wow. She sure thought highly of him.

"Oh?" His hand squeezes her and she narrows her eyes.

"Yeah, because shining armor is a sign that the knight was untested." She leans up, rubs her nose into his cheek, "I just don't see you letting yourself be untested."

No, he wouldn't, she was damn right about that.

Jiggling her, she makes the best faces when she's startled, Gale begins carrying her toward the smell of decidedly un-renaissance foods.

#######

After two turkey legs, four jumbo corn dogs, half a pizza, and several beers, Gale is enjoying himself quite a bit more.

He leans over Madge, keeps his arms around her waist, presses sloppy kisses into her neck. She's hisgirlfriend and he just wants to make that clear.

Some pervert minstrel had followed her around earlier, while Gale was in line getting her a strudel, singing idiotic songs to her until Gale had shot a foam toy arrow at his head.

That's apparently not something you're supposed to do, even if some jerk is trying to serenade your girlfriend. Gale had ended up having to buy the stupid toy, now has it slung over his shoulder, making him look like some overgrown toddler Robin Hood, and had to apologize to the idiot or face expulsion from the fair. Despite the fact that he would've quite liked to have left, Madge's face, brilliantly red with embarrassment, let him know he would still need to apologize. Even if he was completely in the right.

"You should get one of those bar wench looking outfits," he grins into her cheek. "I'll even pay for it."

Perfect use of his dwindling paycheck.

Her eyebrows arch up, "I'm practically dressed like a nun, compared to that, right now and you nearly took out a poor guy's eye for singing about my hair, Gale. Do you really think you'd want me running around dressed like that?"

Gale scowls out at the crowd, as if they might be imagining Madge in the outfit.

"No, you'd just wear it for me." She's the one that had insisted on dragging him to this fantasy land. It isn't his fault he's getting in the spirit.

Madge seems to think that's funny, snorts a little.

He tightens his grip around her, pulls her closer to his chest.

"Gale," she sounds strained. He might be propping himself up on her a little too much. She pushes one of his hands from her chest, "Mind your hands Gale."

He is. His hands just have minds of their own. Dirty minds apparently.

Katniss appears, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, propped up by Peeta.

He's got one of the little wooden swords, is waving it high above his head.

"See," he points it at Madge and Gale. "Madge let Gale have a toy."

"I didn't really have a choice…" Madge shoots Gale a look and he widens his eyes innocently.

Missing Madge's annoyance, Peeta pokes Gale in the shoulder, slightly wobbly. He and Katniss must've found the beer too. "Ready your weapon, ye scurvy dog!"

"Peeta, I think that's pirate talk," Madge frowns.

Gale isn't sure. Was there a difference? Did it matter?

In a much better mood than earlier, he takes his PVC pipe bow and foam arrows, points one at Peeta, "I'll give you a head start, pignut."

"What's a pignut?"

"I dunno." He lets the arrow fly. It hits Peeta in the shoulder.

For a second Peeta just stares at the spot where the arrow had hit him, bounced off uselessly, then he looks up, grinning, before throwing his arms up, sword still in hand. "I am invincible!"

He takes off running, in the general direction of where the car is parked, sword aloft.

Katniss presses her hands to her face. When she takes them down she scowls, takes a few unsteady steps before tripping. "Peeta! Get back here!"

"Don't run with that, you'll put your eye out!" Madge yells at his back. She makes a noise, mutters something about being the only sane member of their group, then gives Gale a tug in the direction Peeta had run.

Gale presses his face into Madge's hair, tugs at one of the ribbons with his teeth.

He may not really care much for the fair, may like Madge's hair down better, but the day hadn't been a total waste. Her intricate hairdo may prove to be a pleasant beginning to the evening.


	9. Battle of the Breakthrough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

April, Freshman Year

Madge gives Peeta an annoyed look. They'd been abandoned and he seemed content to hum 'Hakuna Matata'.

Okay, that's a little harsh, Gale and Katniss haven't abandoned them exactly. They'd just told them to stay put instead of allowing them to join them on their trek across the woods to capture some stupid 'flag'.

Not for the first time, Madge wishes she's stayed home. Catching up on her programming, stored on her DVR, is much more appealing than hiding in some stupid 'bunker' for who knows how long, while her boyfriend and his best friend play some stupid war game.

Why had he asked her to come if he didn't want her to play?

Crossing her arms, she slumps down, taking a seat on the dirt scattered floor of the little cave like structure that had been deemed a 'safe' area during the course of the paintball game. Peeta gives her a small smile. "They're just competitive."

Then they shouldn't have invited us.

When Gale had asked her if she wanted to come with he and Katniss on one of their weekend trips to play paintball with some of the people in their department, she'd been ecstatic. Gale didn't often invite her to participate in his favorite pastimes, mostly hunting, which she was grateful for, she didn't have the stomach to shoot Bambi or Thumper or any other woodland creature like he did.

A paintball game, though, had sounded fun.

It would be like filming a scene out of one of her favorite movies, dressed like some kind of futuristic warrior, and getting to spend time with her boyfriend while he looked incredibly hot.

What she'd gotten was a lecture about keeping her head down and Mossy Oak knockoffs and padding. Though Gale did look good in all of it.

Now though, just barely into the game, he and Katniss were gone and she's stuck, hot and irritable, with Peeta, just waiting to be either rescued or picked off.

"I don't care, Peeta. If they just wanted to run around by themselves, we could've stayed home."

They could be eating snowcones and watching Hannibal slowly drive poor Will Graham off the deep end instead of feeling like a loser stuck in a dirty wallow.

Peeta drops down beside her, shrugging, "I warned you it wasn't going to be fun."

That he had. Peeta has been dating Katniss far longer than Madge had Gale, and he knows exactly how his girlfriend and Gale function. Which apparently didn't involve allowing their significant others to participate in what passed for a relaxing time in their bizarre world.

"I just wanted-I thought it would be fun." It wasn't though. Not by a long shot.

Gale always talked about how much fun he and Katniss had, and despite the fact that Katniss and Peeta were together, she felt a little jealous of the connection. They were a unit, and Madge was on the outside looking in. Just like all the other relationships in her life, she thinks bitterly.

Peeta starts to say something, probably that he'd yet to have fun on any of his girlfriend's day trips, but he's stopped short by the sound of voices coming up on them.

Peaking out, Madge sees Gale and Katniss, accompanied by couple of other similarly dressed combatants. They can't see Madge and Peeta's hid out yet, but Madge can clearly see them. She can see them smiling, laughing, and she can see a girl with short, spiky hair, touching Madge's boyfriend, being a little too friendly.

Madge is use to girls hitting on Gale, getting a little too friendly, even when Madge is standing right there. This is a little more though, Gale is laughing too, seems to be enjoying himself. Is this how he acts with girls when Madge isn't around?

Noticing Madge's scowl, Peeta frowns.

"Oh, that's Johanna Mason, she's a grad student. Remember when Katniss got beat during the drinking game back in the fall?"

Oh, Madge did. That drunken battle had led to Madge rescuing Peeta and Katniss and kick started she and Gale's relationship.

"Johanna was the girl that kicked Katniss' butt."

Madge could imagine the wiry looking girl drinking Katniss under the table. Seeing her run her hand along Gale's shoulders, she could also imagine a lot of other things about her.

"Friendly, isn't she?"

When Peeta doesn't say anything, Madge knows there's a problem.

Narrowing her eyes, Madge glares at him, "What?"

To the outsider he doesn't look like he's hiding anything, but Madge knows better. She's known him since preschool, she knows his ticks, when he's keeping something from her.

He shrugs, "Nothing."

"Peeta."

Cutting her a look, he sighs, "She, uh, she and Gale mighta dated a little, you know, before the two of you got together."

To Madge's knowledge Gale hadn't really 'dated' anyone. He had been, at least to her eyes, a bit flighty, as non-committed as they came. He flirted, went on dates, but was never exclusive with anyone. That pretty much told her all she needed to know about he and this 'Johanna Mason's' relationship before he was with Madge.

It might've been a little childish, but despite the fact that Johanna is on the same team, judging by the swatch of color on her upper arms, Madge wants to knock her out of the game as soon as possible.

Knowing that the group is probably coming up to where she and Peeta are hiding, Madge gets up and heads quietly out before they can see her.

"Where are you going?" Peeta hisses to her from the opening.

"I'm leaving, if Gale wants to flirt with some-some stupid girl, he doesn't need me watching to do it." She'd just call Annie or one of the girls from the coffee shop she worked at to come and get her.

"Madge-"

Before Peeta can convince her otherwise, Madge takes off in a dead run.

After several minutes, she remembers she has no sense of direction. Damn.

She considers turning back, but realizes she hadn't exactly run in a straight line. 'Back' has become a relative term.

"Shit," she mutters to herself. This was supposed to be a fun day. Now she was angry with Gale, sweaty, and lost. Two thirds of that was her own fault, but she didn't care, she was blaming Gale anyway.

While she's contemplating trying to crawl up a tree, she has absolutely no service and thinks the extra height might boost her signal, she hears a rustling of leaves.

Dropping down, Madge rolls under a bush she's certain is filled with ticks and who knows what else, and waits for whoever it is to pass.

A girl, about her age, with brown hair, small, but solid looking, appears. She looks about as annoyed as Madge feels, her brow is wrinkled and her mouth is turned deeply down.

Madge is going to let her pass, she's wearing the same swatch of color on her arm as Madge, and has let her get several yards off, when she hears someone else coming up.

The girl turns, her paintball gun up, when a man, handsome and blond, bounds out beside her. His weapon is up, ready to fire at the girl, and Madge notices he has on the opposing teams swatch, purple. Reflexively, Madge rolls, has her rented paintball gun up, firing at the man's back.

"Sonofabitch!"

His back, dead center, is splattered with green. He's out.

Madge almost feels bad, she's quitting this stupid game anyway, she shouldn't have tagged him, but then he turns. Madge instantly recognizes him.

Ugh. Cato.

Twisting, he looks at his back, trying to find the source of his demise, but Madge is too well concealed.

"Looks like you're out," the girl smirks.

Cato says something to her, glares for a few minutes, before shoving past her, stomping off toward the main tower where the fallen were to convene.

Once he's safely away, Madge wouldn't put it past him to get her back even if he's out, she slowly crawls out from under the bush.

"Good shot," the girl gives her a small smile. It doesn't quite reach her eyes.

Considering it was the first time Madge had ever fired the stupid thing, yeah, it was. She nods, tries not to look too pleased with herself.

"You a solo player?" The girl asks.

Madge brushes some leaves from her hair, "No, I, uh…"

She almost says her stupid boyfriend brought her out, but is now more interested in making googley eyes at an ex-bedmate than showing her how to play, but that seems like a bit of an over share. Instead she shrugs.

"Came with some friends. Got separated."

Nodding, the girl shifts on her feet, "Yeah…me too."

Her tone makes Madge think maybe she's avoiding oversharing too, so she doesn't push it. Instead she offers her hand, "Madge."

A little warily, the girl takes it, "Clove."

#######

After two hours, Madge and Clove have taken out two nests of the purple team.

Like Peeta and Madge, she has a love of movies and television. The girls use their, admittedly fictitious, knowledge of military tactics to aid them in ambushing the groups and quickly suppressing them.

"You've never played before?" Clove had asked after they took out the first group. Madge had displayed a proficiency with the paintballs she didn't realize she possessed and her surprise had spurred her to admit she had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

"Never."

With stealth that would've made Gale and Katniss jealous, the two girls crept through the forest, sneaking up on different groups, skipping the ones with green swatches on and quickly taking out the ones with purple. They're an unstoppable team.

Clove, much like Madge, says she's there with friends, a boy named Marvel and a girl named Gabrielle. Much like Madge, she'd gotten fed up with her friends and their lack of faith in her.

"I'm in school to be a dental hygienist," she scowls. "I'm going to stab people in the mouth during clinical. I think I can handle pelting them with paint." As an afterthought she adds, "And I've taken kick boxing since junior high. I'm not weak."

Despite her impressive credentials, Clove's friends hadn't believed she was capable of holding her own, and so she'd taken off to show them she was more than albe of playing their 'stupid game', with or without their help.

Madge starts to tell her that she's taken a self-defense class and that she once kicked Cato, the jerk she'd shot when they met, in the nuts at a club, but decides that sounds less impressive than knowing kick boxing, so she keeps it to herself.

They're following along a stream, quietly padding on the detritus on the forest floor, when they hear something crashing through the thick foliage ahead. They drop, scramble into some cover just as a group comes out, up to the stream.

"God, Peeta," Gale grumbles. "Could you be any louder?"

Peeta doesn't look flustered at all. He simply smiles and shrugs before pointing his paintball gun at a tree and firing off a few shots, making a sloppy looking smiley face on the bark.

"Stop wasting ammo, bigfoot," the spiky haired woman, Johanna, tells him. To Madge's annoyance she's next to Gale, gives him an agitated look which he returns.

Clove shifts, looks to Madge, her eyebrows arch up. So far they'd simply avoided their own team, but she must recognize Peeta's name, Madge had mentioned it and it wasn't exactly common, so she's obviously curious if Madge wants to rejoin her friends.

She doesn't though. She's still mad at Gale. Not only had he left Madge and proceeded to flirt with Johanna, but, and it was the really stinging thing, he hadn't tried to include her in the game. He'd invited her, brought her, taken her out in the woods, but he hadn't taken the time to teach her anything, actually get her involved in the game. He doesn't believe in her.

It would serve them right if she and Clove took out the whole group right then and there.

Instead, and mostly because she wants to win now and she's pretty sure she and Clove have as much chance as anyone on the team of reaching the flag, she shrugs, jerks her head away from the group.

When their good and clear of Peeta, Gale, Katniss, Johanna, and their giant of a friend, Clove frowns, "Why didn't you want to join up with them?"

Madge makes a face as she considers her answer.

She isn't one to bare her soul to what is essentially a stranger. Slow to warm doesn't even begin to describe her. Gale has gotten annoyed with her on more than one occasion for isolating herself, 'bottling up', as he calls it. She doesn't make many friends, only acquaintances, doesn't enjoy all the stimulation that came with parties Gale and the others liked so much. But Clove is nice, a little too eager to curb stomp their opponents, but she's been good to Madge, and she reminds her a bit of a less terse Katniss. She'd told Madge about her own friends' less than stellar treatment, so Madge feels she might just owe her a bit of reciprocation.

"They left me in a 'bunker' so I wouldn't get hurt." She scowls, "They didn't think I could be any help." She looks back over her shoulder, in the direction her friends had gone, "I ran off."

Clove nods. She understands at least.

"You'd think they'd kick your friend Peeta off," Clove squints off in the distance. "He's loud. At least you're quiet."

Madge just smiles.

#######

It's starting to get dark, the sun is sinking below the tops of the trees and the air is getting a little chillier when Madge and Clove finally reach the far side of the woods.

They stay low, the purple team have left a few defenders to guard their flag.

According to the rules, all the girls have to do is get through the pitiful blockade, up the platform, and grab the flag to end the game. The Referee, a bored looking man that Madge thinks might actually be asleep behind his goggles, will send up a flare, ending the game, if they do.

The platform is at the center of a clearing. Madge and Clove both decide there are probably people along the parameter, maybe up in the trees, watching for the inevitable.

It takes several minutes, but they finally spot two purples, one in a tree and the other camouflaged under what Madge is pretty sure is a bush laced with poison ivy. He won't have a good morning.

"As soon as we take them out it's going to alert the others."

Madge nods. They'd have to sprint across the open space, completely exposing themselves, and just because they hadn't seen anyone else on the parameter didn't mean there weren't more.

"I say we get the bush boy then haul butt across to the flag," Madge suggests. "I'll cover your back. I'm pretty sure I can get the tree sitter once we get to the half-way point. Better angle."

Clove nods, "We may not make it."

"We've come too far. We have to try."

Madge almost laughs at how serious they're being. It's a stupid game, but she can't help but feel that if she does this Gale will see that she isn't useless, that she's just as capable as Katniss or Johanna Mason at holding her own with him. She isn't helpless.

This isn't about a stupid flag, this is, strangely, bigger.

Taking a breath, Madge takes aim, lets a green paintball fly.

The idiot under the bush filled with poison ivy yells, alerts the others as Madge and Clove vault over the brush, out into the clearing. They dodge the hail of paintballs, being small moving targets has advantages

Clove trips in a small, very manmade looking hole, lets out a yell as she rolls, and Madge, who'd just turned back forward from taking out the girl in the tree, falls over her.

It's over, she knows it. They'd picked across the woods like a pair of battle hardened paintball veterans, and now they were going to be taken out by a simple trap.

Then like a big, goofy, blond headed savior, now belting out the lines 'with all the strength of a raging fire', Peeta bursts out of nowhere. He jumps over the lump of girls, lands with a thud as he fires and takes down two of the advancing defenders.

He pauses his singing long enough to point, tells Madge, "Take the flag!"

She looks to Clove, who nods, "Get it!"

Adrenalin pumping and the blood drumming in her ears, Madge vaults over Clove, rolls up to her feet and sprints to the platform, lunges up the steps, and snatches the flag from the small pole they have it secured to.

A flare lights up the dusky sky.

"We won!"

Peeta is grinning up at her, still standing near Clove.

The Ref yawns, nods. It's just another weekend to him.

Bounding down the steps, Madge throws her arms around Peeta's neck, "Where did you come from?"

#######

Peeta is apparently the last 'survivor' of his group.

He grins, "My brothers and I used to play nerf war. I'm a pro at avoiding getting shot."

Madge sometimes forgets Peeta had grown up with two brothers, even though they were as much a part of her life as they were his. Rhys and Emmer are easy to forget about.

"I marked the trees so I wouldn't make circles, so I'd know where I'd been. I figured you'd be heading to the other flag. You looked pretty determined when you took off. I didn't think you'd just leave."

Peeta knows Madge, and he knew she would want to prove herself

He's helping Clove as they make their way back to the main gates. The little brunette is pink in the cheeks and keeps stumbling, though Madge gets the impression it isn't her sprained ankle making her misstep.

"So your girlfriend is here with you?" She asks, disappointment still flickering on her features. "And she left you two to fend for yourself?"

Peeta chuckles, "Well…you have to know Katniss."

When they get to the gate, Katniss narrows her eyes at her boyfriend half carrying another girl. Madge would feel bad, she does, but at least Clove isn't an ex-fling of Peeta's.

"Katniss, this is Clove," Peeta gestures between them. "Clove, this is my girlfriend, Katniss."

Katniss' shoulders seem to relax a little with the introduction. Peeta is so proud of Katniss, proud to call her his girlfriend, and despite the fact that he's a walking, talking embarrassment half the time, his dancing is atrocious, his singing has made the neighbor's dogs bark, he likes wearing superhero clothing, socks, boxers, and t-shirts, and he and Madge have earned more than one threat from their overuse of movie quotes, Madge knows Katniss is proud to call Peeta her boyfriend.

Madge wishes she could say the same about Gale and her.

Someone tugs on her flag, her trophy for making it up the platform, winning the game. Turning, she finds Gale.

His mouth is turned down and his hair is sticking up in all directions. Madge can see the fading indentions from his goggles under his eyes.

"Good job."

Madge nods. She wants to turn away, she's still mad at him letting that Johanna put her hands all over him, but she feels trapped on the spot.

"Didn't know you were any good at paintball."

"Me either."

A little smile tugs up his lips, "Guess I'll know better next time."

He must know he's said the wrong thing the moment it leaves his mouth. Madge can't control her face, she knows her jaw is clenched and her eyebrows her knitted tightly together as she glares at him.

"Next time?" She shakes her head tries to keep her voice from shaking, "There isn't going to be a next time. I don't go where I'm clearly not wanted."

Turning on her heals, she needs to get away from him, wash her face in the grimy sinks of the ladies room, but Gale catches her wrist.

"Madge, wait."

She jerks away, makes her way to the filthy little bathrooms.

Gale catches her, though, tries to pull her into a hug but she wiggles away.

"Hey, look, Peeta told me you were upset about the Johanna thing," he runs a hand through his hair, lets it settle on his neck. He swallows nervously, "I'm sorry. She's just…like that."

"You could tell her not to be." He could be like Peeta and tell her he has a girlfriend. Tell her to back off.

But Gale isn't Peeta. He may have liked Madge from a distance for a good chunk of his life, but he hadn't pursued her. Maybe because he didn't think he could, wasn't good enough, didn't deserve to, but, maybe, a nasty little voice in the back of her mind whispers, maybe he didn't try to get with her because he enjoys playing the field.

Maybe he isn't as in love with her as he's always thought.

"I need-Just leave me alone," she finally fills the long silence between them before disappearing into the bathroom.

She just barely lets the door drop shut before tears begin leaking out her eyes.

Through her bleary vision she makes her way to the sink, begins splashing her face with the brown tinged water that spurts from the faucet. It doesn't do any good though, just makes the tears come down harder until she's holding onto the sink's edge.

Covering her mouth she tries to muffle her sobs, but it doesn't do her any good, they just echo across the empty bathroom, clatter on the stalls sadly.

It's so loud she doesn't hear the door open, doesn't even know anyone is in the room until she feels arms around her.

"Shhh."

Gale's voice vibrates through his chest, gentle as ever, as he runs his fingers through her hair. He likes to do that, she knows, says it's calming. She thinks it's calming too.

"I'm sorry."

She knows he is. People are always sorry. It rings a little hollow, though, if he doesn't understand why.

"I don't want to be an afterthought, Gale." Peeta and Katniss aren't afterthoughts for each other, and she knows they're a lofty ideal to live up to, but it doesn't hurt to try.

"You are never an afterthought." She feels his lips in her hair, "You have to believe me."

He sounds so sincere, she wants to believe him. Evidence of the day points otherwise.

"How would you feel if I asked you to come to one of the concerts at the music center then left you in the hall while I went to hang out with some guy I used to sleep with?"

His arms tighten around her, crush her a little, "I get it." A warm sigh flutters across her scalp, "I just got caught up in the game. We all come down here all the time and, I don't know…I wasn't thinking. I just wanted to show off."

She starts to tell him that letting another girl hang all over him isn't exactly showing off, but then one his hands trails down her spine, traces along her hip and tugs the flag from her hands. She'd forgotten she was even holding it. "Guess you got to show off to me instead, huh?"

Madge takes the flag and stares at it for a minute. A few more tears slide down her cheek, splatter on her hands.

Gale's rough hands reach up, try to wipe them from her face, but ends up smearing the last traces of the days dirt across her cheeks. He grimaces, "Sorry."

When she doesn't meet his eyes, he presses his warm lips to her forehead, "You have to tell me what you're thinking. I'm not Peeta. I can't read minds."

She snorts, a sad little smile fixes on her face.

"I-I just, feel like you don't believe in me, not like you do with other people, and I get jealous."

Gale tilts her chin up, "Jealous? Of what?"

"You and Katniss…you and every other girl you've been with…"

He makes a face, "Katniss and I are like you and Peeta-"

"People don't ask Peeta and I if we're dating." They asked if they were brother and sister a lot, but never dating.

"Because people expect two people that look as miserable as Katniss and me to be in the last throws of a relationship."

Madge almost laughs. Almost.

"Katniss-we would be miserable together. Trust me," he brushes some of her tear wetted hair from her face. "We dated for two weeks in high school. Most awkward two weeks of my life. We're too much alike, too, I don't know-"

"Alpha?" Madge supplies.

Gale rolls his eyes, grumbles something she can't make out, before muttering, "Whatever." He sighs, "And the other girls aren't you. They were just…" he struggles for a word. When one fails to form, he grunts, "Look, they were just not you. They were moments, they happened, but they didn't go anywhere because I'd look at them and they weren't you. They couldn't be."

He's definitely making up for the Johanna thing.

"Can you please just not let girls touch you all the time?" She presses her fingers to her temples, "I know I'm being stupid, and I know you say it doesn't mean anything, but-"

She's cut off by lips pressing to hers, gentle at first, then more needy.

"You're gorgeous when you're jealous," Gale pants when he finally pulls back, presses his forehead to hers. His eyes flicker with something, she can't quite place it, then he sighs, "But I'm yours, okay. Johanna could ride up the elevators in the engineering building with me, buck naked, and I swear, I swear, I'd still be yours."

"I'm not Peeta, I'm not perfect, and I'm not great at this relationship thing. I know I hover with you, but I like taking care of you, that doesn't mean I don't believe in you. I just didn't think about any of the others enough to wantto hover."

A little ping hits Madge's chest.

She was so used to taking care of herself that sometimes she forgot other people weren't like that. They hadn't grown up cleaning up after the people who were supposed to be cleaning up after them. For normal people taking care of someone wasn't a sign they doubted your abilities, that they didn't think you were capable, it was affection.

It's in moments like this, when she's so misjudged Gale's actions, that she realizes how far from average her life had been growing up.

Wrapping her arms around his middle, she presses her face into his chest, inhales the musty smell of his detergent and sweat before tilting her head up, resting her chin in his sternum, "I'm sorry I'm crazy."

She's sorry she's jealous and can't see something that's so plain as day to everyone else.

Gale dips down, presses another kiss to her lips, "You're just a little crazy, but I like it." He lifts her up, onto her toes, "Let's go home and get you cleaned up."

"Me?" He looked like he'd rolled around in mud and let it dry, and she felt it best not to mention his pants, which appeared to have torn around the knees.

"Yeah, you," he plucks a leaf from her hair. "And we should definitely check for ticks."

Madge sighs, "Fine, but that seems unfair. I'm not nearly as hairy as you."

It's almost funny how quickly the scowl takes over his face, "I'm not hairy."

It takes a great deal of effort not to laugh at him as she nods, "Oh, no, not hairy at all. You're…fuzzy."

"Fuzzy?" He begins poking her, tickling her. Damn. "Fuzzy? You have some kind of fetish then? 'Cause you're with me."

When he stops, lets her catch her breath, she smile brightly up at him, "And you're mine, right?"

Gale lets his hands dip down, squeeze her, "And don't you forget it."

Madge grins, "So, while I'm checking you for ticks, are you going to tell me how you and the rest of the Star Squad got knocked out of the game?"

Gale groans, "Ask, Peeta."


	10. Gross anatomy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

August, Sophomore Year

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Gale asks her for the millionth time as he walks her to the building on the outskirts of the campus. Her first anatomy lab.

She isn't, not by a long shot, but it's a prerequisite.

Over the summer she'd finally decided on a path in school, though her certainty has wavered with each passing day, as she inched closer to the class.

No longer is she able to claim being an undeclared. She's now, officially, a pre-nursing student.

It was a choice she hadn't come to lightly. Over the years, growing up, she had sworn up and down, after watching her mother go in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities, that she would never work in healthcare. It's a mostly thankless job as far as she could tell. Her mother, during the worst of her spells, was unbearable, frightening, and despite her frequent promises to Madge and everyone else in their family, she always fell back.

The inconsistence of her mother's stability and seeing not only her, but also the others she was in the facilities with, all the hardships it caused in the families, had made Madge certain working with the sick was the last thing she would ever want to do.

As unpleasant as her mother's stays had always been, though, Madge had felt the staff members genuinely cared for her, tried to make both her mother and the rest of the family feel what little hope they could. Madge felt compelled to pass that compassion on.

And that's why she's currently staring out at a building with an enormous refrigerator in the back.

"You won't even help me with the animals I bring back from hunting," he frowns. "How are you going to do…this?"

He really isn't helping.

"I'm…just going to get through it," she finally sighs. He worries about her too much. It's just because he cares, but it's still too much. It can't be good for him.

Spotting Clove coming up from the opposite direction, waving, Madge turns to Gale and pops up on her toes, presses a kiss to his cheek.

"Wish me luck."

Judging by the look on his face, he thinks she's going to need a lot more than luck, but he dips down, catches her lips for too short a time before whispering, "Good luck."

#######

The inside of the dissection lab has a very…unique smell. Madge wrinkles her nose when it hits her.

She stays near Clove and they press to the back wall of the little hall outside a pair of heavy doors that must lead into the main lab, behind the crush of the rest of the class.

A tall, bald man, a little intimidating looking, emerges gives them a wicked sort of smile. His name badge reads 'Brutus'. Perfect name for a man in charge of cadavers Madge thinks.

"Ground rules," he begins as one of his TAs starts passing out papers, a list of do's and don'ts for the lab.

His deep voice rumbles, warns them against taking photos with a threat of dismemberment, which Madge isn't one hundred percent certain is a joke, tells them that in the highly unlikely event that they think they know their cadaver to let him know.

"In all the years I've done this, though," he tells them with a very distinct downturn of his mouth, "I've only had one girl think she knew one of them. She didn't though." He sneers, "And don't even think of taking any souvenirs!"

That's a little disturbing. Who would take something from a cadaver lab? And what?

Actually…she's pretty sure she doesn't want to know.

"The TAs will pass out the dissection kits, but each group will be responsible for cleaning them after each use and putting them away." He glares out at them, daring them to not wash their utensils.

After a few minutes the doors open to a white walled room flooded in harsh fluorescent light and lined on both sides with four long metallic tables each, covered in sheets. Madge's stomach rolls just thinking about it what's under them.

"This is either going to be so gross or so awesome," Clove whispers.

Madge is pretty sure it's going to be the former, but can't seem to get her voice to work. Plus, she also isn't sure she would voice that to Clove, who seems to like the macabre. It's a little scary at times.

The crowd shuffles in. One of the TAs tells them, "Five to a table, please."

Clove heads to a far table, on the right side, and Madge trails after her. Maybe if she sticks with Clove she won't have to do as much dissecting.

They're quickly joined by a tall boy with a limp, then an ashen skinned girl with stringy hair.

"Hank," the boy offers them all smile. "I'm pre-occupational therapy."

"Laisa Robet," the girl, a little awkward, blurts out. "Pre-med, I don't actually have to take this class."

Well why are you in-wait, what?

"Okay," Clove rolls her eyes, clearly not caring what the other girl had said, "I'm Clove, going into dental hygiene."

"Madge," Madge says, brushing off Laisa's odd admission, feeling a little like she's in some sort of bizarre group therapy. "Pre-nursing."

"And I'm Cato."

Madge fights a groan, her luck couldn't possibly be that bad.

"Going to be the best damn physical therapist in the country."

Apparently, yes, it could.

Looking over, she sees the close cropped blonde hair and annoyingly grinning face of the nuisance she'd racked only months before.

She doubts he'll even be the best in his class, assuming he gets in, but she keeps her mouth shut. Apparently Cato, the world's most obnoxious human being, is the fifth man of their less than merry band.

Great, and she thought this couldn't get any more unpleasant.

He gives Madge a narrow look, "Well if it isn't little miss hit and run."

Biting her tongue, Madge fights the urge to tell him if he doesn't watch his mouth she's going to pull another 'hit and run' on him. Hadn't he learned anything from their last encounter? She isn't going to let him push her around. Maybe she should tell him she's the one that got him out during the paintball game back in the spring…

Before she can do anything, though, a couple of the TAs come to their table, plop a rag wrapped set of dissection tools down on the small rolling table.

Madge lets a tiny smile inch up her face.

Her coworkers from the coffee shop, Katy-Jo Lewes and Birdy Alameda, Gale's least favorite caffeine slingers, are pulling double duty again this year as TAs. Madge had conspired with them to get in one of the sections they were assisting with, so they could help her with study sessions during shifts at the coffee shop.

"I'm Katy-Jo Lewes and this is Birdy," Katy-Jo Lewes tells them with her ever bright smile. "We're gonna be walking between these back two tables."

Cato looks unimpressed. They're not the most impressive looking pair, but Madge knows they're not to be trifled with. He squints down at their name badges, "It says Phoebe?"

Birdy gives him a flat look, "I go by Birdy."

"Probably for the best," he gives Hank a look, clearly thinking a boy will share his sense of humor, "I hear Phoebe, I expect to see an old woman."

Neither Hank, nor any of the other occupants of the table seem to find that humorous. Or they're afraid of the deadly look Birdy is shooting Cato's way.

"Funny," Birdy drawls, "I hear 'Cato' and I expect to see reasonably priced women's fashion." She lets her eyes flicker up and down Cato's frame, his brightly pants and his print covered shirt, "Well, I guess at least one of us isn't using false advertising."

Hank snorts.

Color rises in Cato's cheeks and Madge wonders if he's going to complain to the head instructor, but before he can get his mouth moving, spit out something vile at either girl, they brush past him, begin pulling the sheet from the body on the table.

What the hell is on the face?!

Madge suddenly feels she's in an episode of 'Law and Order', looking down at a murder victim. There's a plastic bag over the face, which is also covered with a thick looking paper towel covering the features.

"We do the head and face last," Katy-Jo Lewes explains as she leans with her forearm on the body. It grosses Madge out more than a little.

"You'll start with the back," Birdy pulls a little scalpel from the towel, twirls it between her fingers. "First, though, you have to flip the body."

#######

Flipping the body, putting it face down, gets Madge a little too up close and personal with the icy cold skin. When it flops over, with a loud thud, her heart stops, thinking it's going to bounce off the narrow little table and crush her.

The entire group works well together, with the exception of Cato. He seems to think his only job needs to be holding the book and pointing out the few muscle groups they manage to uncover during the first class.

"Hey, boy, you'll have plenty of time to plan out your fall collection for the flirty and fabulous after class," Birdy snatches the atlas of the human body from his hands and tosses it to the little rolling table.

Cato gives her a glare before grumpily picking up one of the tools, begins scraping unenthusiastically at some fat.

It's almost tolerable; Madge doesn't feel nauseated or faint as she'd feared she would. She is, however, losing her appetite with each word that leaves Katy-Jo Lewes and Birdy's mouths.

"Fat looks a bit like cream corn."

"This always makes me want steak."

"-and sometimes it has a pudding-like consistency."

"-smells a kinda like corn chips."

"You know you're ruining tons of foods for us, right?" Madge finally says. She's now certain she can't eat anything but bread for the rest of her life, and maybe some candy.

"It does look a bit like cream corn," Clove frowns as she drops a glob of yellow fat into the bucket below the table. "I'll never be able to eat that again."

Madge nods and Katy-Jo Lewes and Birdy just shrug. Clearly ruining people's desire to eat isn't a new occurrence to them.

"And make sure you can live with never being able to wear whatever fragrance you slather up in after class ever again," Katy-Jo Lewes tells them, a forlorn little look on her face.

"Oh, 'Coconut Lime Verbena', I miss not associating you with cracking ribs and bone saws," Birdy sighs.

Madge tries to block them out and not think about her 'Strawberry Sorbet' hand sanitizer in her backpack and how by the end of the semester she might not be quite so fond of the smell.

"Can you two just, I don't know, not talk unless it's something constructive?" Hank finally asks.

"It just gets too quiet in here, though," Katy-Jo Lewes pouts.

"We used to have an iPod dock," Birdy says, casting a sad look to the corner of the room, where a couple of outlets sit emptily. "They took it away because we played one particular Drowning Pool song."

Judging by the looks on their faces they don't see why their song choice necessitated the removal of their obviously beloved dock.

Clove pops up from tracing the edge of the latissimus dorsi from origin to what she hopes is the insertion with a small glob of yellow in her hair.

"Oh, gross," Madge gags.

Clove's eyes widen in horror, Madge suspects she's probably trying to plot out the fastest way home so she can boil her hair. That's what Madge would be doing if she had fat stuck in hers.

Hank reaches over and carefully plucks it out, grimacing, "Maybe we should wear hair nets."

Maybe we should wear full body condoms…

Madge has the sudden urge to borrow Gale's waders, rubber boots, and whatever plastic-like upper body cover she can get her hands on. If she asks him nicely he might take her to a surplus store, they might sell hazmat suits. Or she could just check Amazon…

Would they let her into class if she looked like Walt White?

She might need to run it by the girls.

#######

Class lets out, shortly after Cato leaves for the bathroom and doesn't come back, conveniently leaving all the cleaning to his tablemates.

"What an asshat," Hank grumbles as he helps make sure they have all the tools gathered up.

Laisa, who is a little quiet, but otherwise nice, takes them to the sink to clean while Madge and Clove push the table into the giant freezer.

"I understand the term deadweight now," Madge huffs.

Katy-Jo Lewes notes the missing member with annoyance.

"He best not be skipping out next class."

Birdy twirls her scalpel again, "Does he not realize he's outnumbered fairly heavily here?" She grins wickedly, "He takes off early again and I'll show him just how good at dissection I am."

When they finally exit the chilly building, Madge hadn't even noticed how cold it was until she stepped out, Gale is waiting in the parking lot across the street. He's leaning against his truck, looking warm and comfortable and untainted with the smell of chemical preservatives.

"God your boyfriend is hot," Clove says as she squints across the street at him.

Madge feels her mouth tug up into a smile. Yes he is.

"See you Thursday then?" Madge clarifies as she begins walking in Gale's direction.

"Yeah," Clove grimaces, runs a hand through her brown hair, inspecting it for further contaminants. "I feel so gross. I'm gonna go boil myself in the shower."

"Makes you wonder if the chemistry department would consider renting out the autoclave, huh?"

Clove makes an affirmative noise before taking off to the right, towards the dorms, "See you later Madge!"

Cutting across the main road, jogging, into the parking lot and into Gale's waiting arms. He smells so good. So clean. So not like dead bodies.

"I need a bath so bad. You can't even imagine."

Gale's mouth turns down, a little crease forms between his eyes as he leans in and sniffs her. His eyebrows rise, "You do have an interesting fragrance on."

Yes, 'Strawberry Sorbet' and death. What a combination, she should bottle it up and try to sell it at the mall.

"Other than your new, um, perfume, how did it go?"

Surprisingly, Madge thinks to herself, not too bad.

She smiles up at him, "I think I'm gonna make it."

Enjoy it? Probably not. But she's sure she wants to do this now. If she can make it through anatomy with Cato then she can make it through anything else that's thrown at her.

Her face buries in his chest, "Can I stay with you tonight?"

His place is so much closer and her first lecture on Wednesday is at seven-thirty and she still hasn't done her the assigned problems for her section….

"You just want help with your chemistry."

Is she that transparent?

"Fine, just drop me o-"

Gale cuts her off with a kiss. When he pulls back he's grinning, "Not a chance." He sniffs her again, and frowns, "But first I'm giving you a bath."

Madge grimaces, "I may have fat in my hair. You may want to leave this one to me."

His eyes roll upward, "I'm a hunter, Madge. I'm pretty sure there's nothing on you I can't handle."

"That's quite a bold statement, Gale," she gives him a small flicker of a smile.

"I'm a bold man," he kisses her again. The little crease forms between his eyes again, "You sure you're okay?"

She nods. It's shocking, but she's really okay. Which should disconcert her more than it does.

"Well then," his grin gets a little wicked, "let's go home and put some of this newfound knowledge of the human body to good use."

She contemplates telling him the anatomy he's thinking of won't be part of her 'newfound knowledge' until the end of the semester, but decides against it. "Haha."

Pulling the door to his truck open, he gives her a little push in.

Curling into his side, Madge tries to soak up every inch of his warmth she can. Getting special attention from her worrywart boyfriend is a nice benefit of this new path she's chosen, and she's learning to be happy and accept it.

Besides, she's pretty sure this kind of attention benefits him every bit as much as it does her.


	11. The Date: A Second Attempt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Early November, Freshman Year

Gale is almost afraid to pick Madge up for their second official date.

After the disaster that had been their first one, which had abruptly ended with Madge regurgitating most of her dinner and then some in the sushi shop's bathroom, he desperately wants this date to go better.

She's at work, the little coffee shop he'd taken her to at the beginning of the semester, and she'd asked off early so they could make it to his reservations at the City Circle. Gale had checked the menu, twice, to make sure there were things Madge's apparently delicate constitution could digest. He'd gotten them a balcony table on the deck level, which supposedly had an amazing view of the city.

The little bell jiggles over the door when he walks in, inhales the soul warming aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

"Well don't you look like you just fell out off the cover of GQ."

"Dorothy, your peach fuzz looks a little darker today."

Great.Katy-Jo Lewes and Birdy Alameda, the demon baristas of campus corner.

He should've brought Peeta to distract them. They practically fawn over him, it drives Katniss crazy.

Rather than feed into their sniping Gale stuffs his hands into his pockets and slouches over to his favorite table, in the far corner, a healthy distance from the two dingbats.

He catches a glimpse of Madge, hair pulled back in a loose bun and a few coffee stains on her little apron. She's preparing a couple of large mugs of coffee, adding shots of something or another to them, before putting them on the little tray and sliding them across the counter to the pair of girls in front of her.

She comes out from behind the counter, carrying a plate of something, a muffin of some sort, to a table, and sends a quick grin Gale's way, mouthing the words 'Give me a minute'.

Straightening up, he hadn't realized how much he'd been slouching over the little table, Gale smiles back. His heart speeds up. This date has to go better than the last. If they can't even get through something as simple as a date what is that going to say about their relationship?

While his stomach is rolling with anxiety, he fails to notice the pair of figures swooping down on him.

"Not gonna give our little Magdalene food poisoning again, are you Lil'D?" Alameda flashes him a wicked smile.

Gale rests his chin in his hand, elbow to table, studiously ignoring them, and hopes they take the hint and leave. He isn't that lucky.

The seat across from him makes a screeching noise as someone pulls it out, plops down at the table with him. Glancing over, he finds Katy-Jo Lewes, arms and legs crossed, staring him down. "We have come to determine your intentions with our sweet Madgie."

He intends to take her to a nice dinner and not end the night in the minor emergency. He intends to drive her home and get a goodnight kiss, and if that escalates to something more then so be it.

He intends to show Madge that he's good enough for her, even if she insists that he has nothing to prove.

"What are you two doing?"

Madge appears just as Gale is about to tell the human parasites to take their concern and stuff it. She's changed her clothes, is in an expensive looking dress and a pair of heels. She gives the pair a small smile, "Be nice."

"We're just looking out for you, hon." Katy-Jo Lewes golden eyes flicker away from Gale, smiling at Madge, "He's a real scoundrel, this one."

She might be teasing him, Gale isn't certain. Madge seems to think so, though, because she snorts, rolls her eyes, "Right. Thanks."

Before they can say anything, annoy him more, Gale gets up and heads to the door, hoping Madge will quickly follow.

She lags for a minute, the two idiots are whispering conspiratorially with her, before she laughs, waves to them as she follows Gale's path to the door.

"What'd they say?" He asks, shooting the grinning and waving girls his filthiest look as the door drops closed.

"Birdy was offering to shank you if you get too handsy. I told her you would were a perfect gentleman on our last date and I think you will handle yourself just fine on the second."

#######

Madge looks a little pale in the street light outside the City Circle. She chews her lip.

"It's pretty swank."

Gale wonders if it's as 'swank' as the places she's used to.

She pulls her sweater closer to her, shivers a little. Gale reaches over, wraps an arm around her shoulder, she's like ice.

"Damn," he mutters. "Why didn't you wear something warmer?"

Her mouth turns down and she shoots him a look from under her lashes.

"I figured if you were taking me to a fancy restaurant I'd better dress nicely."

While he appreciates the gesture, appreciates the view even more, surely she had a nice dress that wouldn't turn her into a human popsicle. Women's fashion, though, isn't his area of expertise, so he just grunts, begins pulling her toward the doors.

There's a man at a lectern, pointedly ignoring them when they walk in. Gale clears his throat, he isn't about to let this guy ruin his night.

"Table for 'Hawthorne'," Gale tells him firmly, trying to sound like he isn't intimidated by the low lighting and intricate patterns on the wall.

The man looks down at his book, scans it, probably not expecting to find anything even remotely like 'Hawthorne' on the list. His eyebrows arch up in surprise, though, when he clearly does.

He looks up, obviously annoyed that he's going to have to seat a pair of kids, before waving his hand to the arched door behind him, "Follow me."

Gale feels Madge's cool hand wrap around his as they trail behind the old man.

They make a winding path between a few tables, skirt along the outskirts of the room before reaching the balcony. There are only a few other people on it, all older than Gale and Madge, all clearly well off if the jewelry on the woman to Gale's left is any indication.

Feeling a little self-conscious, Gale straightens his shirt, the jacket he'd paid way too much for, takes a deep breath before pulling the chair out for Madge. She sits, perfectly graceful, helps him scoot her up to the table, and flashes him a bright smile, trying to encourage him.

Swallowing down the anxiety bubbling up in his stomach, Gale takes his seat, accepts the wine list and menu, forces a terse smile for the man whose nose is still stuck in the air.

He's already picked his meal, during his scouting of the menu for Madge, but he gives the overpriced food a cursory look anyway before glancing up at Madge.

Her lower lip is between her teeth as her eyes move along the inside of the ornate menu. Gale can almost feel her anxiety, it's practically radiating off her. After a few seconds she seems to come to a decision, nods to herself, then sets the menu down.

"What are you getting?" Gale asks. She seemed way too nervous for his liking.

"Oh," she smiles. "The minestrone soup."

He squints at her, "Then what?"

Her smile falls, "That's all."

What?

She couldn't be serious. He'd called in favors to get a reservation at this stupid restaurant, done research about the menu, spent good money on a whole new outfit for the ordeal, there's no way he's going to let her put all his hard work to shame by only ordering an appetizer.

He watches her shift in her chair, clearly uncomfortable with the look he's giving her.

Madge keeps her eyes on the table, toys with the silverware, more utensils than have ever graced any place setting at the Hawthorne house, and Gale feels a sudden flare of annoyance.

Did she not want to order more because she didn't think he could afford it? He wouldn't have brought her to this stupid overpriced restaurant if he couldn't pay for her meal.

"I have money, you know?"

She looks up, a little confused at first, then her nose wrinkles up, "I know that, Gale."

"Well then," he reaches across the table and pushes her menu back towards her, "get an actual dinner."

Lower lip puckering, she ignores the menu, "I'm just not that hungry."

Bullshit.

It's a bit like arguing with Posy, he knows he's going to lose, but he's going to keep it up anyway. This may be the only time they get into a place this nice and he doesn't want her worry about his finances to ruin the night.

He picks up the menu and finds the pasta, she likes pasta.

"What about the lasagna?"

Lip back between her teeth, she nods, "Yeah, that sounds good."

Annoyed with her lack of faith in his finances, Gale shuts the menu, sits back in his chair and takes in the surroundings.

There are tiny white lights laced through the canopy above their heads. Wisteria vines, dangling purple flowers hang in icicles down around the edges of the balcony, their scent drifts in the wind around them.

Beyond the edge, just as promised, is a breathtaking view of the city. Parts of the university are lit on the horizon, glowing in the distance. Soft and harsh lights burn in the distance, demarking the downtown and the outskirts, where the majority of the residents lived. If he squints, looks hard enough, he's pretty sure he can find his front porch…

He's pulled from his observations by the waiter coming back, standing snootily beside him.

"Have you and the lady made your selections?"

Gale nods, caught a little off guard by his arrival. "Yeah, uh, I'll start with the calamari then the prime rib," he swallows, flicks his eyes to Madge to make sure she wants him to order for her. She gives him a tight smile, so he continues, "And she'll have the minestrone soup and lasagna."

He's pretty sure he stuttered every other word, but the waiter is less hostile than the man that had seated them, smiles tells him 'Excellent choices, sir' and bustles off.

"We made such weird combos," Madge snorts, some of the anxiety gone from her demeanor.

Not really understanding what she's talking about, Gale picks up the wine list, it might be a good idea to get something even if Madge won't touch it. One glass won't break him.

He glances back at Madge, she's sitting a little stiffly again, staring out at the city like he had been doing only minutes before.

"What's the matter with you?" He finally asks. She's being too closed off, they'd been making such good progress. Tonight was supposed to be his chance to prove to her that he could make it in the world she'd grown up in, the world of snooty men, too much silverware, overpriced foods and uncomfortable shoes.

Madge's mouth turns up, just barely, doesn't reach her eyes.

"I-I don't know," she makes a face at one of the many little forks. "I just feel so out of place."

She feels out of place? How does she think he feels?

"You went to these kind of places with your parents all the time," Gale points out. She should be used to this fancy crap.

"Yeah," she slumps a little, "I felt out of place then too." A little sigh escapes her lips, "Everything was always so fake. Everyone was out for something, trying to prove something. You never knew if someone was really being nice or if they were trying to get an edge." Her shoulders droop a little more, "And then there was the gossip. My mother…she wasn't exactly a social darling, and you can't even imagine all the things people said about her. Some of it was true, but…I was right there! They whispered about all the horrible things going on in my life like I couldn't even hear it and all I could do was smile and pretend it didn't hurt." She takes a deep breath, "Being here just kind of brings it all back."

That hadn't been his intention at all. If he'd have known all that…

"I'm sorry," he feels his own shoulders droop a little. "I just wanted to take you somewhere nice. Somewhere like you were used to and wouldn't make you sick."

Of course his best intentions brought out bad memories. Just his luck.

"Gale, I keep telling you, I don't need fancy dates. There's a reason I live with Katniss, why I went and got a job, why I don't like going to functions with my dad." She reaches across the table and takes Gale's hand, "Just because I was born into that life doesn't mean it's the life I want to live. I like you. I loved our first date, even if I ended up looking like a banshee."

Gale nearly chokes on his laughter. She hadn't looked even remotely like a banshee.

Madge's smile brightens, "I don't want to waste money on fancy food. All I want is to spend time with you, get to know the real you and let you get to know the me you haven't really met yet. If you want to eat here, that's fine, I'll eat here, but I'd be just as happy with a snowcone and a Happy Meal."

He is not buying her a Happy Meal. She and Peeta have a collection of toys from the stupid things and he won't be adding to it.

This place is a waste of money though. Gale is pretty sure he can make a steak better than whoever is in the kitchen and he isn't all that fond of calamari.

"No Happy Meal." She never needs to eat a child meal again. "But maybe we can go get that snowcone."

#######

They both pretend to go to the bathroom before bolting from the restaurant. Gale's pretty sure he'll never get reservations again, but he honestly doesn't care.

Madge gets a strawberry shortcake snowcone and he gets one dubiously named 'The Caped Crusader', some kind of mix the stand owner had created himself.

"It tastes like insanity," he warned Gale.

He takes a bite as he and Madge sit in the motel chairs on the slab in his backyard.

"Mmmm, so this is what insanity tastes like." A bit like grape and cinnamon. He flashes Madge a toothy, purple smile. "Wonder why they didn't name it after one of the bad guys?"

"Because," Madge tells him, "Batman is deeply troubled, probably just as troubled as the villains he fights. I mean, the guy does dress up as a giant bat."

Good point.

"You read a lot of Batman?" That…wouldn't surprise him actually.

She shakes her head, licks some of the red juice from her lips, "I read a lot of Wikipedia."

"Of course you do."

She grins, "The universes around Batman and, I don't know, all the characters in the DC and Marvel Universes are very complex. I was just reading something one day and stumbled across something, and one thing led to another, and bam! It was two in the morning and I was learning about multiverses and timelines…" Her feet, free from the heels she'd forced them into for the date, curl up under her in the chair. She pulls the old blanket Gale had given her closer around her shoulders, "It's all really interesting. Makes you think about all the possible worlds we could exist in."

Gale briefly wonders about all the versions of him that could exist, wonders if any of them were brave enough to ask Madge out earlier than he had.

That's stupid.

He shakes the thought away. All there is, as far as he's concerned, is the here and now. Thinking about multiple timelines and different versions of his life makes his head hurt.

Taking a scoop of his snowcone, he flings it at her, hitting her in the knee. He grins, "Maybe in another timeline you avoided that."

Rolling her eyes, she takes another bite of her snowcone, "I don't think you're really understanding the concept."

She goes off on a tangent, explaining away the various worlds that could have or can exist, mentioning all kinds of wild possible lives for them. Her hands move wildly and her eyes flicker with excitement as she tells Gale about some show she had been watching, something about red and blue universes and 'Observers'.

"You are such a weirdo," he tells her, laughing as she's explaining about a cow named 'Gene'.

"Well you asked me out," she tells him loftily. "So I think you'll just have to put up with me for a few more dates before you can dump me."

He has absolutely no plans to dump her. Unless she turns into an ogre at midnight, which he will easily be able to tell in about another half hour, he isn't leaving her. Even if she turns into an ogre he really doesn't think he'd want to lose her. Getting the courage to ask her out had taken him too long. He isn't about to lose her over her apparent knowledge of something as weird as timelines and sci-fi shows.

"A few more dates, huh?" Gale runs a hand over his chin in mock-consideration, "Did you read that in the 'social skills' article on Wikipedia?"

"…maybe," Madge's strawberry red lips turn up.

He flings another spoon of snowcone at her.

Their date hadn't exactly gone as he'd so carefully planned, but it had gone infinitely better than the last, and for that he's grateful. They got through their second date with Madge smiling, and Gale is pretty sure that bodes well for their relationship.


	12. It's all fun and games...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Early September, Freshman Year

Madge groans as Katniss gets incrementally closer to Gale's face, little sprays of spittle flying out of her mouth as she continues her tirade.

At least she had thrown down her golf club. Being unarmed made the likelihood that this little adventure will end in the emergency room a little less.

Really, there's no reason to be fighting. It's only putt-putt golf.

Madge knew, from the moment Peeta had invited her, that she should've said 'No'. Katniss and Gale are hypercompetitive, and giving them weapons is the worst possible thing she can think of doing.

After all, these are the two that had turned a game of Monopolyinto a casualty case.

It had started simple enough. Gale had helped Katniss and Madge finish moving into their apartment, the week before classes started, and Peeta, sweet, unsuspecting Peeta, had stumbled upon Madge's board games.

"Chutes and Ladders! Candyland! MONOPOLY!"

He'd ordered pizza and set up the game. Things had gone downhill from there.

Katniss and Gale had argued over who got to be banker, accusations were made about games from long ago, before Peeta was finally appointed the position.

"He's her boyfriend, he'll help her cheat!"

"I don't cheat you lying jackass!"

They were really a charming pair. Madge could see why Peeta liked hanging around them so much.

Then they'd argued over playing pieces.

"You got the racecar last time!"

"No I didn't! I had the battleship! I get the car this time!"

Were they eight? No, Madge thought, eight year olds weren't nearly so ridiculous over a board game.

Once they'd finally decided that Peeta would be the racecar and Madge got the battle ship, the only fair arrangement, the actual game had started.

Between quibbling over rules, standard or Peeta and his brother's 'Get Rich or Die Trying' rules, which Madge felt should've actually been called 'The Godfather Rules', and fighting about what the 'free parking' prize was, it actually became enjoyable. That was, until Katniss took Boardwalk and Gale got Park Place.

Madge is still unclear what happened after that, something to do with the railroads and Illinois Ave, but Katniss and Gale started arguing again. Then the Scotty dog was thrown.

How Peeta ended up hit was still a mystery. Madge thinks he was reaching for a discarded pineapple from Gale's pizza, but she isn't sure. All she knew was that less than half an hour later she was sitting in the emergency room with a very contrite looking pair of bankrupt millionaires and Peeta with a washrag over his very reddened eye.

When Peeta was called back Madge had sent Katniss and Gale out to the parking lot. They were still assigning blame for the injury to the other.

"Make up before Peeta and I get back," she'd told them, giving them her sternest glare as she did so. "I'm not listening to the two of you bicker all the way home. It was aboard game. We shouldn't be in the ER over a board game."

"Monopoly injury, huh?" The doctor, white-headed with a bushy, bristly mustache and a limp, squinted at Peeta. "You aren't the first and, god help me, I doubt you'll be the last." He turned back to the computer affixed to the wall. "Looks like a corneal abrasion."

The nurse, a younger woman with cherry lipstick and flaming red hair, nodded at his assessment.

"Looks small," he grunted, just barely giving Peeta's eye a glance. "Take some Tylenol or Motrin. You'll be fine."

The nurse, her badge read 'Angela' arched her eyebrows, "Should he follow up with an ophthalmologist?"

Madge got the impression she meant to say 'he should follow up with an ophthalmologist' but didn't seem to have the authority.

"Sure, if he wants."

When the doctor left, Madge never caught his name and he had his badge turned suspiciously backwards, Angela told them to make an appointment to get Peeta's eye checked as soon as possible and that if his pain got worse or his vision went south to come back.

"You're a new student?" She'd smiled at them as she finished giving Peeta his paperwork.

Madge nodded. She had just wanted to get home, they'd been in the white walled hell for almost five hours just to be told to take over the counter medication.

"Living in the dorms?"

"No," Madge told her. "Opted out. We have an apartment off campus."

Angela looked relieved, "Thank god." She gave them both a firm look, "Those 'Uno' tournaments the dorms have always end here." Her head shook, flaming locks flowing the motion, "Dehydration and palpitations from energy drinks, all over a card game."

It was only a few weeks later, after classes had settled down, that Madge had learned about the annual 'Uno 'til you out' tournament the nurse had been talking about. Half of Madge's English class went missing for several days after the commencement, all coming back with tells of heart monitors and fluid boluses.

Now, in the half lit back lot of the 'Fun Zone', just a few paces from a creepily grinning head of a clown with a missing tooth and weather worn paint, Madge wonders if maybe a caffeine and candy fueled card game extravaganza in the comforts of a dorm common room wasn't a well reasoned plan.

"I'm not even keeping score," she tells Peeta quietly. "No one is winning."

He shrugs, "I'm thinking we ditch them and go play in the ball pit."

Madge rolls her eyes, "You can't, remember? The manager told you if you got in there again he'd call the police and have you banned for life."

No amount of joy from jumping head first into a pit of balls, that are no doubt covered in slobber and snot, is worth ending up on a predator watch list.

"Kids get all the fun," he grumbles.

It's going on ten minutes, Peeta had set the timer on his phone, when Gale and Katniss finally yell themselves out, stomp off in opposite directions.

Peeta starts to go after Katniss, and Madge, naturally, follows behind. He stops, gives her a slight look, "Uh, I'll take care of her, you get Gale."

"What?" No, she will not 'get Gale'. "Can't we just get Katniss, calm her down then go find him together?" Gale's cranky and irritable, more so now that he's been arguing with Katniss. "Besides, I'm the last person he'll want to talk to."

"Whatever," Peeta rolls his eyes. "Gale likes you just fine. Go talk him down. They both just need some time to cool down."

Reluctantly, Madge trudges off to find him, certain she's going to lose a limb when she does.

#######

He's playing skee ball, easily racking up tickets, when Madge finds him.

His eyes cut over, for just a few seconds, when Madge comes to the side of the machine, leans against the wall.

"Katniss was cheating," Madge starts. It's true. She'd kicked her ball and moved it after the windmill had knocked it off course, put it back in the playing area.

Gale grunts, "Would've been more helpful to say that during the fight."

"It's miniature golf, Gale, not the Masters Tournament," she sighs. "Who cares if she cheated?"

The answer to that is apparently 'Gale Hawthorne'.

"She gets away with crap like that all the time and you guys let her do it," he tosses one of the heavy balls up and it lands in the hole labeled '50', sending several tickets spitting out at his knees. "Katniss gets a pass on everything because she's Katniss and things always go her way."

Madge gets the sudden sinking feeling they aren't talking about stupid mini golf.

"Um…"

"My grades were just as good as hers, but did I get a big fat scholarship? Nope. I'm in the same boat as she is, worse actually, I have three siblings, and I still can't get near as much help as she gets." He throws another ball, hits another '50'. "She's just as cranky, more antisocial than me, but she still gets Mellark drooling all over her, forgiving her everytime she does something jerkish, and I-yo-I can't…"

Suddenly Gale looks a little lost in the wildly flickering lights of the arcade games that flash and flare around them, the mechanical chiming music that plays, congratulates people throwing little basketballs and footballs across the game room each time they make a basket or hit their target.

"And then there's you…"

Oh god, here it comes.

He's never seemed particularly fond of her, tolerates her at best, but she'd hoped college had eased that dislike. Madge was too rich, made grades that were too good, was too this or that…

Now that he's had his go at Katniss and her perceived perks he's going to pick on Madge.

She braces herself.

"You…" his eyes flicker over, up and down her, "You wouldn't understand."

That's true, she probably wouldn't. She's never struggled, at least not financially, not like he has. She's never worried about how she's going to pay for anything. It makes her feel more than a little guilty.

He reaches down, rips what appears to be hundreds of tickets from the front of the skee ball machine and takes off, leaving Madge still leaning against the wall.

Nearly tripping, she takes off after him, catches him as he weaves between the tables blocking his way to the counter where they count tickets.

"Gale, none of that's Katniss' fault."

His feet come to a stop, he glances down at her, sighing, "No, just the way it is." One of his hands, the one free of tickets, comes up and runs over his face, up through his hair before settling on his neck. "I just-I wish I could catch a break."

Without thinking, Madge reaches up, gives him a little pat on the arm, "You will."

She doesn't actually know that. Heaven knows in the areas she wants to catch a break in Madge certainly hasn't. She has money but her parents are absentee, and a little attention is all she's ever really wanted. Gale has to be luckier. He has so much, even if he doesn't realize it, and that will pay off more than all the money in the world someday, she's certain of it.

When his eyebrows scrunch together Madge realizes she still has her hand on his arm, lets it drop quickly down.

He's off again, leaving her behind as he takes long strides over to the counter and deposits his tickets for the pimply faced boy to put through the counting machine. For several long minutes Gale ignores her, watches the paper tickets run quickly through the machine and the digital numbers increase.

"Uh," the boy, his voice is cracking, finally squeaks out when the last ticket shoots through. "You can get anything you want."

That's a lot of tickets. He must be very good at skee ball.

Gale's eyes flicker to Madge, he makes some kind of grunting noise, his generally preferred means of communication with her, then points to a large bird of some kind. It's yellow, like a giant stuffed canary.

The moment the boy puts it in Gale's hands he shoves it at Madge.

"Hold this," he tells her roughly.

Great, I'm his pack mule now. She thinks irritably.

They leave the building, cross the grounds, past the batting cages and the bumper cars, to where Peeta and Katniss are sitting at a picnic table, munching on an atrocious looking basket of nachos.

"Nice bird," Peeta snorts, eyeing the enormous bird as Madge plops it down next to him.

Katniss crosses her arms, looks like she might start arguing again, and Gale does the same, but then Peeta makes a noise, somewhere between a grumble and a tut, and she deflates a little.

"Sorry." Since she doesn't say what she's sorry for Madge isn't sure Gale will accept the apology, and for a second it looks like he won't. His eyebrows knit together, mouth turns down firmly, then his glare flickers to Madge, to the giant yellow atrocity she's planning on using to suffocate them both with if they start fighting again, and sighs.

"Whatever."

They spend a few tense seconds staring at each other, then Peeta breaks the tension.

"You won quite the bird for Posy, huh?"

Gale's mouth turns up into a smirk, "Nope."

Katniss' eyebrows arch up, "What do you mean 'nope'?"

"I mean 'nope'," he makes the 'p' pop a little louder than necessary. "That's Madge's bird."

Madge gives the bird a look. For some reason she doubts Gale's suddenly feeling generous with her.

Katniss seems to have the same line of thinking, frowns, then her expression flickers into confusion, "Where are my tickets?"

Gale was holding the…oh.

"I was going to get Prim something!" She starts to get out of her seat.

He shrugs, "Well, I got Madge something."

That's why he said the bird was Madge's. Katniss wouldn't care if he'd swiped her tickets to get his baby sister a big stupid toy, but giving it to Madge wasn't quite the same thing.

Peeta puts his hand on her shoulder. It takes a second, she still looks annoyed, but she calms enough to sit back down.

"Fine," she gives him a dark look. "Next time you're helping me win all those tickets back."

Gale shrugs again, "Fine."

They stare each other down, trying to bore holes in the other's head, then, just as quickly as they'd started fighting, they stop.

"Wanna go get on the go-karts before close?"

Katniss nods, "Sure."

They head off, toward the little track, probably to get in another fight when one or the other makes a questionable pass.

Knowing they should turn tail and leave, Peeta and Madge slowly get up and, dragging their feet, follow after them.

"I'm never coming with you guys again," Madge tells him, squeezing the giant bird to her chest.

"At least you got a prize," he mutters. "Katniss told me I couldn't even think about getting the giant 'Mad Hatter Hat', even though she had plenty of tickets ages ago."

"You poor mistreated thing." She stops gives him a bright smile, "At least you didn't end up in the ER."

He rolls his eyes, "The night is still young and we're about to get in tiny cars and go very fast." His shoulders slump, "Just don't let Gale be the one to give me mouth to mouth, okay?"

Madge snorts, "You got it."


	13. ...until Peeta plays matchmaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Early September, Freshmen year

Gale's pretty sure they're on a 'do not admit' list at the fun center after the go-kart incident. Though, really, it's Mellark's fault. Most things are, Gale thinks.

Who knew something with that low a profile could flip so easily?

If he would've just put his foot down and driven like a maniac, like everyone else was, instead of puttering along like a Sunday driver, he wouldn't have been in their way and they wouldn't have ended up in the tires lining the side of the tracks.

The man running the track had promptly run out, fire extinguisher in hand, yelled at them, telling them they were idiost and that this 'place is meant for families!' before telling them to 'get outta my park!'.

Before they left though, it was apparently imperative that the girls, or at least Madge, use the restroom.

So Gale and Mellark get to wait.

"How long does this usually take?" It feels like they've been in there for ages already.

Mellark shrugs, "Well, girls have more to do, I guess."

His sister didn't take this long. Granted, she was six, but still…

"Just sit down and wait. It's all you can do," Mellark flops down on a bench, putting the obnoxious yellow bird Gale had bought to annoy Katniss next to him.

Gale is about to walk off, go wait in the car, when Mellark feels the need to fill the silence around them. He seems to debate with himself for a minute before finally deciding to say what's on his mind.

"You could try being nice, you know?"

Much as he tries not to roll his eyes, he can't help himself. What is Katniss' dopey boyfriend talking about?

"To Madge, I mean."

Ah…wait.

"Why the hell would I be nice to her?" If Katniss had told this idiot about Gale's stupid little crush on Madge he was never speaking to her again.

Mellark's expression, normally a contented smile, morphs into a smirk, "Oh, come on, man. You think I can't see you looking at her? I thought you were going to grab the guy at the gas station by the collar and drag him out back when he told her he liked her shoes."

"He wasn't looking at her shoes," Gale grumbles. He knew exactly what that asshole was looking at.

"Gale," Mellark looks almost pain, "he was commenting on her shoes. Have you ever paid any attention to shoes? He wasn't interested in Madge, trust me."

"What are you-" Oh. Oh.

He really needed to pay better attention.

Looking smugly superior, Mellark flops around, lounges against the giant bird. "I don't know how you've gotten so many dates in the past acting the way you do, but you could try being, I don't know, less of a dick." He shrugs, "It's been known to work."

Gale huffs, "That would be great, if I liked her."

Which he doesn't, at least as far as Mellark is concerned.

"She'd like you if she got to know the, you know, not douchy side of you."

Peeta Mellark: Motivational Coach Extraordinaire.

Does he really think he's helping? 'Cause he isn't.

If he thinks what he's saying is making Gale anymore confident in his nonexistent abilities to woo Madge, he's dead wrong. The 'Madge Undersees' of the world don't date the 'Gale Hawthornes', it's a simple fact. The sooner Gale accepts that the happier he'll be.

"Maybe I am a douchebag." He has a lot of the hallmark signs of being one.

Mellark chuckles, "Naw, I think you have some strong defense mechanisms at work, but I don't think you're a genuine article douche."

Gale hates all that psychology crap Mellark is so fond of throwing out. He isn't a machine that can be broken down into an infinitesimal amount of pieces, all his wants and needs whittled down to weird mental processes that a bunch of dead people made up decades ago.

"What are you talking about?"

"You," Mellark waves a lazy hand in Gale's direction, apparently painting his aura or some crazy shit, with an invisible brush, "have an amazing inferiority complex."

He does not. In fact, Gale is pretty sure he's better than half the people he knows, present company included.

"You don't think you're good enough for Madge."

That…isn't entirely untrue.

"She's rich. She's smart." It isn't necessarily that Gale isn't good enough for her, it's that she's just too good for him.

"Yeah, too bad you're an engineering student," Mellark snorts. "God knows they're morons that can't get jobs."

He really isn't as funny as he's be led to believe.

"Besides, Madge doesn't care about money,-"

Well she really should. It's what makes the world go 'round after all.

"-if you knew what her life has been like you'd know that." He narrows his eyes at Gale, "And you'd know that if you didn't act like an asshat around her and asked her out. Treating her like a bad case of athlete's foot is just your way of keeping her at arms length, trying to get her to do something to make you hate her, prove to yourself that she's something she isn't."

It takes a considerable amount of effort not to smother Mellark with the giant canary.

He has no idea what it's like to be poor. Just because he's dating Katniss, who'd caught a lot of breaks the past few years. She'd never been in the same financial troubles his family had, she got most of her schooling paid for, she got her 'Mr. Sensitive' who liked her even though she wasn't always the friendliest person to be around.

"Give Madge a little credit, let her make her own decisions. She can't like someone she never really gets to know."

"Like you and Katniss?" Gale doesn't even try to keep the scathing tone from his voice.

Mellark brightens, "Exactly! Do you think I started liking her because of her brilliant interpersonal skills?" He makes a noise, something like a snort, "No, I started liking her because I saw the real her. The Katniss that helped her sister and got excited about going hunting with her dad. The Katniss that actually smiled and was friendly with Madge. She's her own person, but she's like you, she keeps it buried, really, reallydeep, and it took me a long time to get her to trust me." He puts his hands behind his head, relaxes a little more into the canary, "If she weren't so guarded we would've dated a long time ago, and the same goes for you."

It annoys Gale to no end that he and Mellark and he have such similar reasons for liking the girls they do. He's even more annoyed that all his stupid psychological mumbo jumbo makes sense.

Madge really hasn't ever made any indication that Gale's money, more specifically the lack of, made any difference to her. She's always been unfailing polite, despite his decided lack of manners towards her.

Still…old habits die hard, but maybe he'll consider some of it. Not that he'll let Mellark know that though.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Mellark shrugs, sits up and wraps his arm around the bird. He eyes it for a second, considering it, then smiles.

"So…did you really give this to Madge just to annoy Katniss?"

Gale smirks, "Bet your ass I did."

The groan Mellark makes probably scandalizes a few of the families walking out.

"They're going to name a disorder after the two of you, you know that, right?"

As long as 'Hawthorne' comes first in the listing, he's fine with that.

#######

The ride home is uneventful.

Gale gets the backseat, despite attempting to call 'shotgun'. Mellark had given him a jab in the gut with his thick elbow, shot him a look that said 'trust me' before proceeding to stuff Madge into the middle seat with Gale and the bird, which had been dubbed 'Bob', taking the door seats.

"Why can't I get the window seat?" Madge asks looking a little uncomfortable with the seating arraignment.

Gale is too. He can already feel the sweat glands under his arms kicking into overdrive.

"The smallest person gets the middle seat, you know that Madge," Mellark explains, as though he's not giving a stuffed animal full rights and privileges. He then buckles the stupid thing in, beaming at the glaring Madge.

Carefully, desperate not to drench her in sweat, Gale slides in. It takes all the steel in his nerves to not shake as he buckles himself in, settles himself back down in the seat.

He doesn't quite know what to do with his hands, put them in his lap or cross his arms? Should he relax and stretch his arm over the back of the seat like he normally does?

Damnit, Mellark! Did he really have to play matchmaker?

Gale can feel buckets or hot sweat rolling down his back, tries to wipe it off his face without drawing attention to the fact that he's quickly dehydrating himself.

If Madge gets out of the backseat and isn't drenched in his nasty pit sweat it'll be nothing short of a miracle.

Mercifully, or perhaps because he sees the look of increasing panic on Gale's face, Mellark turns on the car and a blast of cold air hit the backseat, like an arctic blessing.

Feeling the sweat begin to dry on his skin, Gale relaxes.

"Peeta! You're freezing me out!"

Madge has her hands vigorously rubbing up and down her arm, trying to use the friction to warm her inexplicably cold skin.

"Just lean on Gale," Mellark tells her. He doesn't so much as glance at the back seat as he pulls onto the road, but Gale can almost see the dopey grin on his face. "He's super hot."

I'm going to kill him. They can add that to the list of distinguishing characteristics for the 'Hawthorne Disorder', or whatever Mellark is going to name it, an almost frustrating need to beat the smug out of 'helpful' so-called 'friends'.

Katniss falls asleep in the front seat of Mellark's crappy car, which Gale can feel, quite easily, needs a new set of shocks. He watches as Madge, huddling against Bob the bird, gets drowsier and drowsier. Her eyelids flutter a few times before they drift close and her breathing evens out.

When she starts to slump forward, Gale catches her, tries to prop her against Bob again before finally catching Peeta's eyes in the rearview mirror. He jerks his head in Madge's direction, as if to say 'Well, I got you this far'.

Gale shoots him the dirtiest look he can manage, but finally puts his arm over the back of the seat, maneuvers Madge into the crook of his arm and prays his combo deodorant and antiperspirant is living up to its claims. He's only used up twelve of the twenty-four hours it guarantees.

Mellark wags his eyebrows and Gale has the overwhelming urge to shave them off his smirking face the next chance he gets.

The next half hour is the longest of his life, as they drive back to the apartment. He keeps catching whiffs of Madge's shampoo, raspberry he thinks, maybe strawberry, his mind isn't thinking clearly, and he can tell herdeodorant is working.

When they finally pull into the parking lot Mellark rouses Katniss just enough to get her up, out of the car, and up the stairs.

Gale extracts himself from around Madge and scoots out of the car, carefully letting her come to a rest in the seat.

"When she goes out, she's out!" Mellark yells from over the railing. "She had a lot of stimulation today, she's all tuckered out. Looks like you'll have to carry her up."

That golden haired bastard had planned this. Gale isn't sure how, but he had.

"What would you do if I weren't here?" Gale yells up.

"I'd carry her," he answers back. "But you're here, so I don't have to do all the heavy lifting. Thanks man! Don't forget Bob!"

With his stomach doing summersaults, Gale debates going up the stairs and…well, he isn't sure what he's planning on doing, but it would be unpleasant.

Instead he glances at Madge, curled up in the seat, feet up under Bob, and sighs.

Gently, he gets his arms around her, heaves her out of the car, expecting her to wake up and scream. That would be his luck, Mellark being a dirty, dirty liar.

She doesn't though, just sleeps on through as he adjusts her in his arms and catches Bob by the fluffy butt, dragging him behind them.

Gale's had practice carrying his siblings and their stupid toys so it's not as hard as it could be, still, Madge is a full sized, if somewhat small, adult and Bob is annoyingly large.

When he gets into the open door of the apartment Mellark is sitting on the couch, Katniss curled up beside him, snickering at Gale's struggle.

"You two drugged her didn't you?" He needs new friends.

Mellark makes a little noise, shakes his head, "She's been a hard sleeper since she was little."

Katniss' grin widens, "I would consider this payback for stealing my tickets, but you're probably enjoying it a little too much."

He is, but he isn't going to let them know that. This is the most physical contact he's had with Madge ever, the most he ever will, so he considers this more of a payoff than a payback.

"Go to hell," he grunts at her.

Not even sparing them a glance, he drags Bob behind him as he carries Madge into her room.

Very carefully, he puts her down, grabs the fleecy looking blanket from the bottom of her bed and covers her. He puts Bob in the corner of her room, in an ancient looking rocking chair, angling him so that he appears to be staring at her. He supposes that's a bit of an asshole move, but it's too funny to resist.

When he leaves the room Katniss is waiting for him, leaning on the counter between the kitchen and the living room.

"I don't know what Peeta told you, but I'm sure it's right." She looks toward the bedroom, presumably where her boyfriend is now getting ready for bed, "He acts like an idiot that hasn't passed second grade most of the time, but he's actually pretty smart. He's good at reading people. Take his advice."

With that she heads to her bedroom, not even looking back at Gale as she does.

Happy that Mellark had apparently kept his personality dissection, or whatever stupid name he had for his analysis of Gale, from Katniss, she'd pity him or something stupid and he doesn't want that, Gale heads for the door.

He's starting to pull it shut when it catches. Mellark, dressed in the tackiest pair of heart patterned boxers Gale had ever laid eyes on, pulls it open again, puts his head just barely out.

"Remember: don't be a dick."

Gale puts his hand on Mellark's face, gives him a shove, back inside the door.

"Don't be a dick, got it."

If Peeta Mellark wants to play matchmaker, fine.

Gale doesn't have a chance with her, he's is still perfectly aware of that, but if Mellark wants to put his dopey face in Gale's business, then when it all falls apart, it'll at least be his fault and not Gale's.


	14. How to make a great first impression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

May, Freshman Year

Madge presses the cool backs of her hands to her face. She's probably purple with embarrassment by now.

She can't, well she actually can imagine a worse way to meet Gale's parents, but her mind isn't working at full capacity at the moment. It's in overdrive, coming up with all the horrible things they must be thinking about her.

"Will you calm down," Gale whispers to her, a little roughly considering the state she's in, when he finds her in the kitchen fanning herself with her hands.

"Calm down?" How is she supposed to calm down? Her boyfriend's parents, people she really, truly wants to make a good impression on, just burst into their son's living room for an impromptu visit while Gale had her half-dressed, pinned under him on the couch.

Way to make a first-impression, Madge.

They're going to think she's some kind of floozy, a trollop, a dim-witted-

"Madge," Gale takes her by the shoulders. "Everything is fine."

Her eyes closed, she can't look at him when he's talking such nonsense. Things most definitely are not fine.

His dad had seen her bra, her peach colored, lacey bra. Still worse, he and Gale's mother had seen their son's hands all over that bra, groping at every inch of exposed skin they could get to, attempting, rather expertly, to unlatch it at the back.

The day had been going so well up to that point.

Gale and she had met after her last final to celebrate. They'd gone to get a pizza and Gale some beer before settling in at his little rental house with Peeta's Netflix password for a night of blissfully empty-headed movie entertainment.

It had been going as planned until Gale started in with his roaming hands.

Despite all the times she's warned him that he and his dirty-minded hands were going to get them in trouble, he never listened.

They started at her calves, then her knees, inched their way up her running shorts before she caught them and pushed them down, not once letting her gaze flicker from the screen.

"Gale, I'm watching this."

"Mmhmm," he mumbled as he nuzzled his nose into the side of her neck, started nipping at the skin with his teeth.

"Gale…"

She could feel his mouth break into a grin at her slight annoyance.

"You can watch the movie," he told her as he maneuvered her back on the couch.

"I don't think you and I watch movies the same." In fact she had been pretty sure she was going to have to hit pause or she was going to miss some very important plot points.

"Hmmph." He hadn't seemed to care at that point, had been completely consumed with getting her shirt off.

Madge hadn't hit pause, had started helping Gale with the buttons on his shirt instead.

Then came the kissing, and the groping, then they completely and utterly missed the knock at the door, the click of the lock, the creak as his parents pushed the ancient thing open.

What they didn't miss was the gasp his mother let out and the uncomfortable, awkward cough his father made to get their attention.

It had taken approximately ten point five seconds for Madge to roll out from under Gale, retrieve her shirt, throw it on, and pop up for an introduction.

"Hi, uh, Mrs. Hawthorne, Mr. Hawthorne." She'd gestured, a little frantically at herself, trying to right her lopsided shirt, "I'm Madge. I'm, um, Gale's girlfriend."

Brilliant introduction. Not at all dim sounding.

She should've just begged them for a do-over. Wasn't there a special word for that? A Gilligan? No, that wasn't right, although she felt a bit like the Skipper's little buddy at the moment, completely confused and making things worse with every word out of her mouth.

A mulligan! That's what it was called.

Actually, she liked 'a Gilligan' better.

"It's, um, very nice to finally meet you Madge," Gale's mother smiled, it was a little forced. She was probably trying very hard to erase the image of her son mauling Madge from her mind.

His father had held his hand out, "You're every bit as pretty as Gale said you were."

The fierce blush on her cheeks burned warmer. Whatever goodwill she might've garnered from Gale's description of her had definitely been undone by the little incident on the couch.

"Oh, thank you."

#######

They sit down for what must be the most awkward dinner in history.

Gale's parents ask polite questions, make easy conversation, almost entirely with Gale.

Madge can't look at them. It takes considerable effort to answer even the most basic questions they ask about her classes and her plans.

After the longest half hour of her life, Madge is about to get up, pick up everyone's paper plates and feign a deadly illness. She certainly feels like she's going to die.

Then Gale's phone rings.

"Oh, it's my boss." He gets up, leaves the table, leaves Madge and his parents, to go to the back porch to talk.

Picking at her pizza, Madge bites her lip, tries to focus on anything but her uncomfortably pounding heart.

Mr. Hawthorne smiles at her, she just catches it out the corner of her eye. "Are you always this quiet?"

Madge nods. She may be a mute for the rest of their acquaintance after tonight.

The table goes silent again. If there were crickets, they would be chirping.

Mrs. Hawthorne finally sighs, "Madge, dear, I don't want you to feel awkward around us."

Too late.

"Mrs. Hawthorne," Madge begins her plea. "I just want you to know this was completely out of the ordinary. Gale and I were just going to watch a movie."

"Must not have been a very good one," Mr. Hawthorne mutters to himself.

Madge feels her face flush. "It-well-see I-"

He starts laughing, "Little lady, it was a joke." Mr. Hawthorne sits back in his seat, one of Gale's impressive collection of lawn chairs masquerading as indoor furniture. "My wife can attest to the charm the men in my family have. You really didn't stand a chance."

Mrs. Hawthorne doesn't look like she's even remotely close to verify his claims of irresistible charm. She simply closes her eyes and lets out a long suffering sigh. Her husband leans over on her, gives her a peck on the cheek.

Madge feels the knot in her stomach loosen a little. She still feels compelled to beg forgiveness. " I just-please don't think I'm some kind of-of, oh god, I don't even know."

Her bright gray eyes open after a few seconds of ignoring her husband, who has decided to rest his chin on her shoulder and stare at her, and she gives Madge a small smile.

"Neither of us," she cuts her husband a look, "think you're anything but a lovely girl. You're the first girl Gale's offered to let us meet."

Madge frowns, "Ever?"

"Ever," his dad gives her a reassuring smile. "He's made some questionable dating choices, but I can safely say that we don't think you're one of them.'

It's comforting knowing that she isn't among the ranks of the Shumard sisters from high school and heaven knows who else. She still wishes she could take a take a mulligan, or a Gilligan, or both, on her first meeting with Gale's parents.

One thing is for certain, she's wearing several layer of clothing next time she and Gale decide to watch a movie.


	15. Roller rink miracles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

September, Freshman Year

Gale grabs onto the wall as his feet make a valiant effort to escape him.

Somehow Katniss and Mellark had convinced him to come to the roller rink for 'Dollar Day' with them. He'd never been roller skating, but then neither had Katniss, so the prospect of watching her fall on her ass was more than a little appealing. Then again, Gale and Katniss had both been ice skating since they were small, this couldn't be much harder. Besides, if Mellark said hecould manage just fine then it couldn't be that hard.

That was a massive misassumption.

Mellark, who is normally about as graceful as a garbage truck, is gliding around without so much as a stumble while Katniss is clinging to his arm and just barely managing to keep upright.

This isn't like ice skating. There's a kind of contact during ice skating that is blazingly missing from this concrete hell. Wheels aren't meant to be on a person's feet, Gale feels absolutely certain of that at the moment, as each of his legs try to go in opposite directions.

A group of kids come flying by him, laugh at his obvious discomfort, and he fights the urge to flip them off. If he didn't have these rolling abominations on his feet they'd be in real trouble.

When he finally gets his legs and feet under him, he begins to inch his way to the exit. He isn't sure how he got to the opposite wall, but he's pretty sure it involved falling a lot.

After he's managed to stay up for thirty straight seconds, someone slows beside him. The second carrot Mellark had dangled in front of Gale's face to humiliate him on the roller rink of death.

Madge.

"Do you need help?" She's barely moving beside him, gliding beautifully as she eyes him warily.

Of course she could skate as well as Mellark. They'd both grown up in town, a continuum of paved roads and sidewalks. They probably both had their own skates when they were little.

Gale grunts at her. He looks like a newborn baby fawn, gangly and uncoordinated, and doesn't really feel like having the girl he's had a crush on since junior high watching him make a perfect fool out of himself.

"Katniss said you two are really good with ice skates," she says, still barely moving beside him. "I tried ice skating one. Nearly broke my arm."

Madge chuckles and Gale cuts her a look.

Of course she'd tried ice skating. Her parents had probably bought her fancy skates, not anything like the decades old hand-me-downs he and his siblings shared. They probably paid for lessons and those stupid sequined outfits so that their little princess could be like the girls at the Olympics and the first time Madge had fallen she'd given up.

He tries to hold on to that irritated feeling that bubbles up when he thinks of someone having so much without any effort, but his mind, the perverted thing, gets hung up on those sequined one-pieces.

It's enough distraction that his legs and feet lose their purpose, once again go out from under him, and he ends up flat on his back with a groan.

"Gale!" Madge drops to his side. "Did you hit your head?"

It might've bounced, but he doesn't know. What he does know is that it hurts.

"I'm fine," he grumbles as he pushes himself up.

Madge gives him a stern look. "At least let me look at your head."

His smart mouth almost gets the better of him to pop off with something crud, but when she scoots around to his back and starts running her cool fingers through his hair to inspect for what he's certain is a nonexistent injury, his remark dies on his lips.

When she's satisfied he hasn't broken his head open, she stands and holds her hand out. "Hold on to my hand and I'll get you off the rink."

In the distance he sees Mellark, still towing a slightly steadier Katniss. The jerk has the balls to wag his eyebrows at Gale.

If he thought he had any hope of getting to the safety of the carpet and benches without help, he would ignore Madge's hand and get up himself. As that's unlikely, though, he huffs and lets her pull him to his feet.

When her back is turned Mellark gives him a thumbs up, so Gale flips him off. He deserves it.

Madge tugs him behind her. Gale studiously tries to keep his eyes on her back, on her hair, anywhere but on her shorts, which have risen tantalizingly high on the backs of her legs.

His dirty mind fails him again. This time he falls forward, catches Madge around the waist and takes her to the floor with him.

They both make strangled noises as they hit the ground with a slap.

For several seconds Gale is too stunned to move. Madge has broken his fall, and his mind tells him to relax this is as good as it'll ever get with he and Madge. The more reasonable part of his head, though, wins out when it tells him he's crushing her.

He rolls off her, onto his back so that he's staring at the painfully bright lights on the ceiling.

"Ouch," Madge finally groans.

Gale turns his head and looks at her. She's on her stomach, but looks uninjured as far as he can tell.

She pushes herself up, sets up on her heels and looks over at him. "Are you hurt this time?"

He grunts a negative and sets up, begins taking the stupid roller skates off.

"Gale, you can't-oh nevermind, that's probably a good idea," she sighs.

Before he can hurl the death-shoes at one of the obnoxious kids rolling by him, Madge grabs them from his hands and glides off, probably to return them and get Gale's deposit.

Mellark and Katniss roll over, both snickering at Gale's misery.

"That's one way to cop a feel," Mellark chuckles as he holds one of his hands out to Gale.

He's free of the roller skates now, though, so he gets to his feet on his own, shoots Mellark the filthiest look he can manage and stomps off.

"Hope your feet don't smell, Gale. You're riding in the back with Madge," Mellark calls to his back.

Gale almost flips him another bird, but stops when he sees a couple of kids, probably Vick and Posy's age.

He's almost to the carpet when Mellark, pulling Katniss, comes up beside him.

"You weren't being a dick, were you?" Mellark asks.

Katniss snorts, shuffles herself up a little. "Peeta, it's Gale. Of course he was."

"Shut up, Katniss." Does she not realize how precarious her situation is? She still has those god awful skates on. One good shove and she'll be down.

Mellark gives him a smirk. "You should've played it up. Madge likes taking care of people. She's good at it too."

Katniss rolls her eyes. "That's why Peeta always asks for her when he's sick. He knows she's a sucker for a sad face."

Gale files this interesting bit of information under 'things that could be amazing, but are utterly useless to Gale'.

He shoots them one last irritated look. He's embarrassed and sore and just tired of their meddling so he stomps off in his dirty socks, off the rink and to the little locker that's holding his boots hostage.

After a good five minutes of searching for the key and failing to find it, Gale leans into the lockers and begins gently banging his head against the metal.

"That's probably not a good idea, you know," Madge says suddenly behind him. She gestures to his head. "Since you probably hit your head and all."

She has some money in her hands, his deposit on those stupid skates, and a frown on her lips. Her hand reaches out, holds the money out to him. He takes it and quickly stuffs it back into his wallet, then into his back pocket.

Madge reaches into her front pocket, fishes around for a second, then pulls the locker key out and hands it to Gale. "Here."

Gale takes it without speaking, but does make a grunt of acknowledgement.

He opens the locker, considers taking Mellark and Katniss' shoes out and dumping them in the birthday cake and wrapping paper filled trashcan just a few steps away, but decides that would be a dick thing to do. Even if it isn't directed at Madge, she's still there to witness it, so it probably counts.

He notices Madge has given up her skates as well, so he pulls her pitiful flip-flops out and tosses them at her feet. "There."

"Thanks," she mutters.

Flopping down, Gale starts to bend over to get his boots on when his shoulder catches. His hand instantly jumps across his body to rub the soreness out, most likely from tensing before hitting the floor those several times. It's nothing serious, but Madge's chilly little fingers are instantly on him.

"Did you pull something when you fell?" She starts gently prodding the muscle, working the ache out.

Before he can tell her to stop he remembers what Mellark had said minutes earlier, about Madge liking to take care of people. While he's almost certain using her better tendencies to get more than his fair share of attention is a bit of a dick move, he stays frozen in place and lets her work her soft ministrations.

More than once his eyes flutter, almost go closed. She's very good at whatever it is she's doing.

"Is it feeling better?" She asks as her fingers slow.

Gale jerks a little, shakes the haze off, and nods.

He bends down, finishes putting on his boots, and doesn't feel much, if any, soreness. His fingers finish off the laces and he sits up, gives her a narrow look. "Where'd you learn that?"

If she says she works in a massage parlor on the side he's getting the name and number. He'll call first thing in the morning and block her times out for the next week.

Madge shrugs. "I took a class one summer. Thought it might help my mother with her…problems."

Judging by her glum expression, her efforts had not helped her mother. Gale feels a pang of pain hit his stomach. He doesn't know much about Madge or her family problems, just the gossip he's heard around their tiny hometown and from Katniss' mother, but he knows her mother is sick and has been for years.

It only takes a second for Madge to shake off the sad look, fix a small smile on her face. "Did it help?"

He wants to tell her 'no' just so she'll try again, but she looks so hopeful that her efforts have helped someone that Gale just can't.

"Yeah." He rolls his shoulder. "Feels a lot better."

She jumps over his second boot, to the locker, pulls out her purse and starts digging through it. When she has her arm at the bottom, or at least he thinks it's at the bottom, her purse appears to be large on the inside than he imagines it should be, she grapples something and pulls it out.

"Here." She dumps several pills into the palm of her hand, digs through them, finds the she wants and holds it out to him. "Take some ibuprofen. It'll make you feel better."

Gale's eyebrows knit together. "How do you know that's ibuprofen?"

It could've been anything. She had ten different things in that unlabeled bottle. That's got to be illegal, he's sure of it.

"I know what it looks like." She takes his hand and puts the pill in it. "Just trust me. I'm a girl. We know our medications."

He doesn't ask why, because he can guess that. One more bit of information to store away. If he ever needs anything for a minor ache or pain, he's finding a girl.

Madge looks pleased when Gale swallows the pill dry.

"Come on, let's get a drink and some food." She gestures for him to follow her to the pitiful little concession stand.

They end up setting opposite each other in a dark booth. Gale is washing down the pill with a coke and Madge is happily munching on a dry looking pretzel.

Gale watches her eyes as they follow the skaters still on the rink. They're in the middle of a 'glow in the dark skate', which looks juvenile and dangerous to Gale. Madge seems to like it though, her smile stays pleasantly on her face the entire time, right up until the black lights are drowned out by the flickering to life of the normal florescent ones and the hokey pokey starts up.

Mellark is putting on a show for Katniss, who has hopped up on the low partition between the rink and carpeted area to watch. He's a complete fool, dancing around with the elementary school kids that haven't realized that the hokey pokey is lame.

Madge doesn't seem to see the absolute dorkiness of it though.

She laughs, because it would be impossible not to, but she doesn't make any indication that Mellark is the equivalent of a human 'hokey pokey' in her eyes.

When she notices Gale's flat look and derisive snort she frowns. "What?"

He jerks his head out to where Mellark has put his 'whole self in'. "I don't know how Katniss puts up with him."

Her nose wrinkles up. "Peeta makes her laugh. Katniss is so serious all the time. He isn't afraid to 'sacrifice himself on the altar of dignity' to make her happy."

"Sacrifice himself on the altar of dignity?" Does she sit around all day reading Shakespeare?

"It's from 'Ten Things I Hate About You'," she explains.

"Never heard of it." Mellark probably has, though, Gale thinks irritably.

"Of course you haven't," she sighs.

"I didn't spend my childhood watching tv," he snaps before he can stop himself.

Madge's lips press together, her eyes fall to her lap, and she starts fidgeting. Gale instantly knows he's said something wrong.

"I didn't have much else to do," she mutters. Her eyes flicker up to her now cold pretzel and she reaches up, rests her hands on the table and begins picking it apart.

It's another part of her life he doesn't know about, probably never will. Mellark has mentioned it too, the cryptic nature of her mother's illness and how Madge had spent a significant portion of her youth alone, but all Gale has are those scraps of information about the secret life of Madge Undersee. He's only put it together partially, and part of him feels like it isn't his place to ask her for the missing pieces. She would tell him if she wanted him to know.

Feeling a bit like a jerk for being short with her, Gale takes one of the shredded bits of pretzel and flicks it at her. It hits her squarely in the chest and falls into her shirt.

"Hey!" She turns a faint pink.

Gale snickers. "Sorry."

Once she has the bit pulled from her bra and has started righting her shirt, she shoots Gale a sharp look. "That wasn't funny."

That was entirely debatable. Gale thought it was at least chuckle-worthy.

When she's settled again, Gale takes a deep breath. He's broken the tension, now he needs to do something not dickish.

"Uh, thanks," he mumbles, hoping she hears him.

She must, because she frowns, wrinkles her nose up.

"For, you know, helping me on the rink, and uh, fixing my shoulder."

For a second she just stares at him, not really understanding what he's said. Then her lips tug up in a skeptical little smile. "You're…welcome?"

Gale doesn't have to force a smile; one actually finds its way onto his face at her mystified expression.

His genuine pleasantness seems to infect her and her smile pushes her cheeks up further.

Not acting like a jerk to her isn't something he's used to. Getting a smile out of her, a promising development if there ever was, is even more bizarre to him. Unlike skating though, it's something he wants to try again, get better at.

Someone yells on the rink and Gale looks over just in time to see Katniss lose her footing, flail her arms, and disappear below the barrier between the rink and the carpet.

Madge smiled at him and Katniss is going to have a bruised backside in the morning.

The night had definitely taken an upward turn.


	16. Feel it in your gut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

July between Freshman and Sophomore Year

Gale feels like shit.

It had started during the night. He'd woken up to a dull pain in his stomach which had gotten progressively worse until he finally threw up. It had gone downhill from there.

He couldn't get comfortable, didn't sleep most of the night, and had called in to work promptly that morning. Then he'd called Madge.

Before he'd even finished telling her what was the matter she was out the door and on her way to his house.

"Do you want the red Gatorade or the blue?" She'd asked after telling him she was making a run to the store to pick him up some 'get well' essentials.

"Red," he'd grunted. Who would choose blue?

He'd passed out after that.

"Gale," Madge whispers in his ear, waking him from another bout of restless sleep.

Looking up, he finds her concerned face, wrinkled nose and creased forehead, hovering a few inches above his face.

"Gale, you're burning up." She pulls his blanket away, runs her cool hands over his fevered skin. "When was the last time you drank anything?"

"I'm not drunk," he tells her.

"I meant water," she clarifies.

He laughs, but she doesn't find it funny.

"You might be dehydrated." She pours him a large solo cup full of red liquid and holds it to his lips. "Drink."

"I'm not thirsty," he grumbles as he tries to find a comfortable position. Another wave of nausea hits him and he narrowly misses emptying the final traces of whatever he'd eaten for the last year on Madge.

Rolling back on the couch he rubs his stomach, grimaces. "I think I'm dying."

When she doesn't argue he opens one eye and looks at her.

Madge has her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing on it hard as she studies Gale, as if he's a problem on a test. Finally, she sighs.

"I think we should go to the hospital."

He groans, "I was joking."

"Gale," she sets the cup down, "I think it's your appendix."

For a second he just stares at her. She's clearly lost her mind. Gale is positive he just has some vicious stomach bug. Probably because he'd let Mellark help with the hamburgers during the cookout a couple of nights ago. Peeta Mellark should stick to carbs and leave the protein based meals to Gale and Katniss.

"It's just a bug," he tells her. "I just need to sleep it off."

Gale proceeds to try and tug her onto the couch with him. She resists for a few minutes, looks like she might try and argue him into going to the hospital, but finally relents and drops onto the couch by him.

Despite being hot and sweaty, Gale pulls her flush against him, arms tight around her middle. It's the most comfortable he's been since the ordeal began and he finally drifts off to sleep.

#######

When he wakes, his stomach radiating in pain, Madge is pinned between him and the back of the couch. Her nose is wrinkled up and her eyebrows are drawn together in concern.

"Gale, you're burning up," she mutters as she runs her freezing hands over his face.

His stomach seizes up and he rolls onto his side again.

Madge crawls over the top of him, crouches down beside him, concern etched in her features.

"We're going to the hospital."

It takes her the better part of the hour to get him up, dressed, and in the car, but Madge wrestles the very resistant Gale out of the house. Gale lets her sprawl him out in the backseat, his hands massaging his abdomen.

Madge is a terrible driver, the slowest Gale has ever ridden with, but she's clearly worried and Gale almost has to tell her to slow down a few times.

When they finally get to the hospital Gale feels a little less optimistic that he's going to survive whatever the hell is wrong with him. Madge pulls him out of the car, throws his arm over her shoulder and drags him into the hospital.

The nurse, a taller girl with rusty colored hair, at the triage desk eyes him warily as she checks his vitals.

"Well, you certainly have a temp, don't you?" She says with a smile after pulling the spacey little thermometer away from his face.

Madge is wringing her hands, chewing her lip as she watches the woman wrap the blood pressure cuff around Gale's arm. "Are you very busy tonight? Will he get back there quick? How bad is his temp? Do you thin-"

Gale reaches over, behind her, runs his hand up the back of her thigh, startling her into being quiet. She quickly pushes his hand down and turns a vivid pink, gives him a stern look once she's made sure the nurse hadn't seen him feeling her up in public.

If he felt better he'd try and pull her into his lap, tell the woman to leave he had some kissing to do with his girlfriend, but, for what is possibly the first, and hopefully the only time in his life, Gale doesn't feel like a make out session.

Almost two hours, several tubes of blood, and a CT scan later, Gale is waiting in a breezy, backless hospital gown while the doctor, a tiny man with glasses and a low voice, explains that his appendix is very inflamed.

"You're lucky you came in when you did. Any later and it might've ruptured," the doctor explains.

He says something to the nurse and she rushes out of the room and comes back with a few papers, consents for Gale to sign. Sloppily, Gale scribbles his name where she points and she disappears again.

"We'll get you some pain meds and then they'll be taking you back to surgery shortly," the doctor tells them absently as he rushes out the door, before Gale can even tell him he doesn't need pain medication.

"I'm fine," he tells Madge through gritted teeth.

She's still wringing her hands, eyes wide and worried.

"I should call your parents," she says suddenly.

Gale catches her by the wrist, stops her from calling.

"It's too late for them to come up. I'll call them when I get out of surgery."

Madge looks unconvinced. "Gale…"

He tries to grab her leg again, distract her, but she's caught on to his trick and dodges.

"Gale, this is serious. If your appendix ruptures you could get really sick, you could die."

He thinks she's being a bit dramatic, but just gives her and indulgent smile. "Well then you'd better let this dying man get a feel in before they take him back to gut him."

Her eyes widen. "Gale that isn't funny."

She's distracted enough by her horror at his statement that he's able to run his hand up her skirt, jerk her toward the uncomfortable stretcher they have him on.

Leaning up, he catches her lips in a quick kiss, forgetting he hasn't brushed his teeth all day and he's been throwing up. To her credit, Madge doesn't say anything, just grimaces slightly as he falls back onto the thin mattress.

Madge's hand twines in his, fingers tightening around his as she gives it a little squeeze.

#######

When Gale wakes up he's in a very bright room. His stomach doesn't hurt anymore, though he does feel a little strange.

He tries to sit up, but someone, a little blonde that at first he thinks is Madge, but that he quickly realizes isn't, gently pushes him back down. "Be careful, Mr. Hawthorne. You need to move slow."

His mouth is dry and he smacks his lips loudly as he turns his head and searches the room for Madge. Surely she's there. She wouldn't leave him.

"Madge?" He tries to rasp out, but his incredibly dry mouth turns her name into a harsh noise.

The blonde nurse that isn't Madge hovers over his face, smiles a little too brightly at him. "That's your girlfriend? She's in your room. We don't let family in the recovery area. You'll see her when we get you upstairs."

Gale vaguely remembers them telling him that before, but he isn't certain. He also remembers the doctor telling him he had to stay in the hospital overnight to get antibiotics, but again, it's all fuzzy and distorted.

The nurse says something, and he must respond because she grabs something from behind her and the next thing he knows she's shoveling a cold substance into his mouth.

He almost spits it out, strange people spoon feeding him questionable foods is on his list of things he doesn't want to happen, but when he realizes it's ice he greedily swallows it down without thinking.

"Very good. Be careful, you don't want to choke," she tells him as he tries to take the cup from her and tip a few more chips into his mouth.

A little more alert, his eyes squint out into the room.

"Where's Madge?" He asks.

"She's in your room. You'll see her in a few minutes, remember?"

He doesn't, but he nods anyway.

Before they can stop him, Gale sits up. His stomach hurts more when he does it, but compared to how it had felt it's significantly better. He waves one of his hands at the nurse.

"I'm better now. I don't need surgery."

She smiles. "You've already had the surgery. You're in recovery."

That sounds familiar, but at the same time it's all foggy. Maybe this is a trick. He feels a little drunk. Katniss and Mellark are probably playing a joke on him.

He looks around again. What was he looking for…

"Madge?"

Another nurse sighs. "She's in your room Mr. Hawthorne. You'll see her in a few minutes."

"Are you hurting?" The blonde nurse asks.

Gale squints at her badge. It says 'Krista', which doesn't make any sense. The nurse at the triage desk's name was 'Angela' and the one that had been in the little emergency room didn't have a name, just an empty badge reel with a frowny face on a sticky note attached. Who is 'Krista'?

"No," he tells her. "I don't need surgery. I'm better now."

'Krista' starts laughing, "You've already had surgery. You are in recovery. The anesthesia is just making you a little loopy."

He's pretty sure she's lying, but nods anyway. "Where's Madge?"

Gale reaches for his phone. Maybe if he shows them a picture of her they'll help him find her.

His phone is missing though, and he tosses his crunchy plastic pillow on the floor.

"What are you looking for Mr. Hawthorne?" 'Krista' asks.

"My phone," he grunts. "I have some pictures of Madge. Then you'll know what she looks like and you can help me find her."

The other nurse groans.

#######

Gale's head is starting to unfog when the nurses finally roll him out of the recovery area and onto an overly large elevator.

"Your girlfriend is in your room," 'Krista', who is apparently the post anesthesia nurse, tells him.

He's finally come to grips with the fact that he's had surgery, though he remembers exactly nothing about it. Which he finds a little strange. They cut him open, shouldn't he remember something about it?

"Trust me, man," the other nurse, a bearded man with an earring tells him. "You do not want to remember surgery."

When Gale's room rolls into view he finallysees Madge.

She looks like she's been crying, which is ridiculous. His head is clearer now, and he remembers the doctor telling them an appendectomy is a 'boring' surgery. 'Boring' surgeries aren't anything to cry about.

They roll him past her and he insists on getting up and walking to his new bed, another uncomfortable, plastic and thin thing. He instantly wants to go home. Or to Madge's apartment. Her bed is much more comfortable than his and she has silk sheets.

Once he's settled, met yet another nurse, another man this time named 'Kris', Madge slowly walks into the room.

"Are you feeling better?" She asks as she drops down beside him on the bed.

Gale nods, reaches out and runs his hand up her leg. She must still be pretty upset, because she doesn't push his hand down or tell him to watch it, they're technically in public. He hates seeing her so anxious, but if she's relaxed enough to let him run his fingers on her smooth legs without embarrassing her, he'll take it for a little while.

"I-I called your mom," she tells him softly. "She and your dad are coming up tomorrow."

He huffs. She shouldn't have done that. He isn't dying. "Great, now I have to call them and convince them to stay home because I'll be out of the hospital before they even get to town."

Madge flinches a little, chews her lip and mumbles 'sorry'.

She stands, goes across the room and pours a cup of water and carefully walks it back to him.

"Peeta and Katniss came by," she says quietly, almost as if she doesn't want him to hear her. "They left before you got out 'cause Katniss said you wouldn't want them making a big deal out of it."

At least Katniss had some sense, Gale thinks.

"Good," he says a little too sharply.

When Madge doesn't sit down again, just stands there staring at the dingy tile on the hospital room floor, Gale frowns. He tilts his head to get a better look at her face.

There are tears building in her eyes and Gale instantly feels like an ass for picking at her. She was just worried about him.

He grabs her hand and gives it a squeeze. "Hey. I'm not mad. I just know my mother is going to be unbearable. Though you probably just cemented yourself as a saint in her eyes."

His mother would know Gale wouldn't call her. It would take losing a limb, an arm or a leg at least, for him to tell his parents he's in the hospital. Madge has just proven she has more sense than the eldest Hawthorne child and Gale's mother will be asking him when he's going to pop the question everytime he talks to her from now on.

Madge gives him a watery little smile before settling down on the edge of the bed. She grimaces a little.

"I know I'm overreacting. I just-I've always hated waiting by myself when my mother was admitted, you know, if my dad was out of town. Mr. Abernathy always came and sat with me when that happened, but I can't call him and ask him to drive up here and hold my hand while you're in surgery." She wipes her eyes. "It's just, sitting by myself I think of all the things that could go wrong and catastroph-ize things and make myself sick worrying. And I would want someone to call me if my child were sick, and-"

She's too far from him, so Gale creeps his hand around her back and jerks her toward him and quieting her ramble.

"Gale, be careful," she puts her hands on his stomach. "You'll pull your stitches."

He shrugs and runs his hand through her hair. It's a mess, she's clearly been taking it down and putting it back up, pulling at it and twisting it.

"So," he smirks. "How many of these bratty children will we be getting phone calls on?"

Her nose wrinkles and she shoots him a sly smile. "We? Who said they were your children. I said mychild."

"You have some means of reproducing without a guy?" He asks as his hand begins working its way under her shirt.

Madge's lip is between her teeth again and she arches her eyebrows up. "Maybe."

For some reason the thought of Madge pregnant doesn't freak Gale out as much as it probably should, most likely, he thinks, because of the anesthesia still in his system. The thought is especially enticing if it's his baby she's going to be carrying, which it will be, he's never been more certain of anything in his life.

He goes in for a kiss, only to have his anticipation rewarded with her hand.

"Gale, I love you, but we really need to brush your teeth."

His tongue runs over his teeth, they feel gritty and he'd even admit that he probably tastes like a dead skunk.

Before Madge knows what he's doing, Gale pushes himself out of the bed and heads for the little sink by the bathroom. Someone, a glorious, wonderful, brilliant someone, has sat out a crappy little toothbrush and a travel sized tube of cheap toothpaste beside it and Gale hastily begins scrubbing off a day's worth of filth from his mouth.

When he finishes, spits out the last of the minty bubbles, he turns and gives Madge the most pathetic expression he can manage. "Can I kiss you now?"

Her eyes roll. "I guess."

She grabs his hand and steers him back to the bed, pushing him back down before settling beside him and pressing a long, gentle kiss into his mouth. When he gets a little too ambitious, the Madge that tells him to watch his hands comes back, pulls out of the kiss and gives him a glare.

"Gale, you just had surgery and we are in a hospital," she sighs. "Control yourself."

"It's the anesthesia," he tells her. "I'm not in control of my functions."

He pulls her back to him again, maneuvers her, despite her giggled protests, back flat on the bed before kissing a line down her throat.

"Gale, no." She wiggles out from under him, pushes him back down. "You'll pull your stitches."

His filthy mind thinks up a few things to say to that, but settles on, "It would be worth it."

Madge just shakes her head.

"Fine," he huffs, crosses his arms over his chest. A wicked smile forms on his face and he looks back up at her. "So since you won't give me some physical therapy will you at least give me a sponge bath?"

She snorts. "I'm pretty sure you can take a shower in the morning, Gale."

"Well then you can help me take a shower." He widens his eyes. "I've got all this anesthesia in my system, I might fall and hurt myself. Better safe than sorry, right?"

"You make a compelling argument," she chuckles as she runs her hands through his hair, trying to put it into a presentable state.

Gale finally gets her to settle in beside him, lets him settle his hand on her thigh, well under the hem of her skirt, as he begins to drift off to sleep. The night ahead of him is already looking much more promising than the night before, and not just because he isn't sporting an inflamed appendix.


	17. Life Lessons With Peeta Mellark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Early June etween Freshmen and Sophomore Year

Gale can't believe he has to ride to the store with Peeta 'Mmmbop' Mellark. It's the worst insult of his long day.

Madge is sick. Something in the air has her sniffling and sneezing, a stuffy, puffy eyed mess. That would be bad enough, but she's also having 'lady troubles'.

"If you value your nuts you won't call it that in front of them," Mellark had cautioned him.

Since Mellark has the uncanny ability to know how to maneuver the dangerous waters around women better than any man Gale's ever met, he decided to take that bit of advice.

Following those words of wisdom had earned Gale a place as Madge's personal pillow for an entire afternoon. Which wasn't as good as teaching her to fish, his original plan for the day, but it wasn't a bad trade.

It had all been going well until Madge had gone to the bathroom and come back, an expression somewhere between tearful and angry on her face. Never a good combination.

"I have to go to the store," she'd told him as she started searching around for her purse. How she lost it so often was a mystery to Gale, it was roughly the size of Posy's 'My Little Pony' sleeping bag. Losing it should be impossible.

Any yet she does it on an almost daily basis.

As if a little Mellark was sitting on his shoulder, angel wings and golden glowing halo, Gale suddenly knew what to do.

"You stay here," he told her before he fully thought through the ramifications of what he was about to do. "I'll go for you."

Impending doom suddenly flooded his system, but Madge's bright smile at his offer washed it away.

Then she frowned. "No. I don't want you to be embarrassed."

Why would-

Oh.

He's never had to venture to the women's hygiene section. His mother never took him, Posy is mercifully too young, and he's never offered for any of his former girlfriends. It's most definitely not something he's comfortable doing, but if Madge and Katniss, of all people, could make it down that aisle, then Gale most definitely could.

"I won't be embarrassed," he told her with an assured smile.

And he wouldn't have been. He's sure of it. If only his truck hadn't crapped out half way there.

The damned thing had been puttering out for a month now, but Gale had been trying to squeeze every last mile out of it he could before giving in and buying a new one. He had the money now, but he was attached to the old piece of crap and it physically pained him that he couldn't repair it one final time.

Calling Madge wasn't an option. She had never replaced her car after it had been stolen back in the fall, and was more than content to ride her bike around town like some loopy hippy. It baffled Gale to no end.

Besides, she wasn't feeling well and Gale was determined to be the hero.

He tried, more than once, to call Katniss, but she had turned her phone off. Probably deep in the library studying for her one and only summer class.

That left him with one final, and altogether annoying, option.

#######

Mellark pulls up in his little electic blue car and Gale shields his eyes from the sun blinding him as it bounces off the all too shiny paint of the eyesore car. Gale has told him on more than one occasion that it's a high school girl's vehicle, but Mellark doesn't seem to care.

"They must have sensible and Eco friendly taste then," is the only response he's ever given to the jibe.

Getting Madge's tampons won't be half as mortifying as riding with Mellark in his sissy little car. To top it all off he's got his iPod plugged in, playing a bizarre mix of bubblegum pop, top forty hits, and, inexplicably, Jimmy Buffett.

With the windows rolled down.

Even at the stop lights.

Gale would almost think he does it for the sole purpose of annoying him, but Katniss has moaned and groaned about him doing the same thing to her.

When they pull into the 24 hour shopping center of hell, packed to the gills with senior citizens there for their weekly discount, Gale bolts from the car so fast he almost chokes on the seatbelt.

"Hold on, Gale," Peeta tells him as he hits the buckle release on the belt. "I brought coupons. Did Madge have a specific brand she wanted?"

After an agonizing phone call back to Madge, during which Gale kept Mellark trapped in the car, they make their way into the store.

They're no more than twelve steps into the store when Mellark is drawn away by the prospect of free snacks being gleefully handed out by an ancient, gray headed woman. He's a lost cause. Gale isn't about to battle through the half dozen or so elderly waiting on the half a bite sized offering just to save his ride.

He'll happily take the bus.

Coupons for 'buy one get one half' gripped firmly in his hand, Gale makes his way to the personal hygiene section and locates the tampons.

He throws a package in the hand basket he'd grabbed at the front of the store and is about to make his triumphant exit when he hears the world's most obnoxious laugh.

Not this asshole.

"Is it your time of the month, Hawthorne?"

Cato, the smug bastard, is standing at the end of the aisle, arms crossed and smirking at Gale, eyeing the delicate package in Gale's possession.

If there weren't security cameras filming every move, Gale would hurl his basket of tampons at Cato's clean shaven face. There are though, so he grits his teeth and turns to walk away. He has a bus to catch if Mellark hasn't escaped the snack line.

"Are you just too hormonal to string two words together right now? I've heard that happens to you ladies sometimes," Cato snickers.

Gale turns and is about to tell Cato exactly what his hormones are telling him to do to his face, when Peeta's too cheerful voice calls to him from up the aisle.

"Hey Gale! I got you a sample!" He jogs down to the pair of visibly agitated men, still grinning as he hands a bewildered Gale a tiny plastic cup filled with a nut and berry mixture.

"Oh, is this your girlfriend?" Cato asks, smirk still in place.

Annoyance flashes on Mellark's normally placid features, but it's quickly replaced by a wicked grin.

"Sorry to disappoint you bud, but Gale likes the ladies."

Cato's mouth drops open stupidly. "What?"

Mellark's grin widens as he pats Gale's shoulder.

"This magnificent hunk man meat is taken by a pretty little blonde number. Completely smitten with her, truth be told. I know he just oozes animal pheromones, but with a body like his, he just can't help it. You're just one of many who can say they're collateral damage to his sweltering charm." He gives Cato a pained smile. "Don't worry though; I've heard the grocery store is a great place to meet someone. Maybe you should try hanging out in the cocktail section, or by the bananas. That's where my brother met his boyfriend."

While Cato is still staring, wide eyed in absolute confusion over what Mellark has said, Mellark reaches out and takes Cato's hand, places his little plastic cup of mixed nuts in it.

"Offer him a delicious and nutritious sample size nut mix. Always a winner!"

With that Mellark gives Gale a push down the aisle, leaving Cato standing, still unable to fully process what has just happened.

Gale isn't even certain what's just happened. Should he thank Mellark or slap him?

"Was that the douche bag that Madge kicked in the cojones during the club opening?" Mellark asks, still pulling Gale along by the handle of the basket.

"Yep," Gale grunts.

He stops, digs his heels in and nearly makes Mellark trip. He looks at Gale and frowns. "Why are you stopping?"

Scowling, Gale looks back in the direction they had come, expecting Cato to be coming around the corner, ready for a fight. "I need to go back."

"Why?" Mellark's expression is bordering on irritation. "Gale, that guy is an asshole. Madge told me about him. He's just trying to start trouble for the sake of it."

"He called me a girl, Mellark," Gale tells him through gritted teeth.

The basket stops tugging, drops back and hits Gale mid thigh.

Mellark sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. "Really? He called you a girl? That's his great offense? You've got to be kidding me."

Gale opens his mouth to defend himself, Mellark hasn't got a man card to defend so he doesn't know how big a deal this is, but he's cut off by the package of tampons being pressed into his face.

"Gale, girls have an organ in their body that literally peels its inside off once a month then squeezes the remains out through their vagina. That same organ can carry a human being in it, averaging eight pounds, and push it out. Then, instead of whaling on the little parasite like I would if it crawled its way out my penis, they love it." Mellark shakes his head. "Man, girls are hardcore. There are worse things to be called than a girl. Grow up. Take your coupon, get your girlfriend her tampons and a carton of Cherry Garcia, then go home and snuggle with her without expecting payback, because she's doing you a favor by not beating you to a pulp. And trust me, she could. That guy isn't worth your time or the bail money, and he certainly isn't worth upsetting Madge over."

A dozen senior citizens scramble past them, towards a blue light special just announced on aisle Twelve, as Gale stares down Mellark.

He's probably right. In fact, Gale would be more surprised if Mellark weren't right. He has unfathomable amounts of knowledge about women. The man should write a book, pass his wisdom on to all the hapless men around him. It would be the kindest thing to do.

Snatching the plastic package from Mellark, Gale stomps past him, to the ice cream section, then up to the self check-out.

"Not a word," Gale tells Mellark, jabbing his finger in his serenely smiling face.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he chirps back.

When they get in the car, Mellark begins fiddling with his iPod.

"No more Jimmy Buffett," Gale warns him.

Mellark smiles. It's a bit unnerving.

"Okay." He runs his finger over his playlist. "Just remember, you chose the Buffett-less road."

After the ride home, Gale is positive Mellark should work for the government. No one would be able to keep information from him once he put his 'most obnoxious songs evah' playlist on.

If he actually paid money for some of those crimes against music, Gale doesn't think he'll be able to speak to him again. It's going to take a week's worth of Led Zeppelin playing on a loop, with a little Pink Floyd and Seether for good measure, just to resuscitate Gale's last remaining music loving brain cells.

"You are such a music snob," Mellark laughs as Gale makes increasingly pained faces the entire ride back to the apartment.

"No one likes the 'Barbie Girl' song, Mellark," Gale snaps. He isn't being a snob, he's being sane.

"Whatever."

The finally pull into the parking lot and Gale opens the door, frowns in a Mellark. "Why aren't you parking?"

He jerks his head toward the campus. "I'm picking up Katniss for dinner. Down at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Madge isn't the only girl needing special attention today."

Gale grimaces. Mellark is a far braver man than Gale's given him credit for.

"Good luck," Gale tells him, completely sincere.

Mellark smiles, pushes his dollar store aviator sunglasses up his nose and grips the wheel. "Gale, where I'm going, I don't need 'luck'."

Then he pulls away, slowly rolling over the speed bump and putting his blinker on before pulling out in front of a woman in a Focus.

Gale rolls his eyes and starts up the steps, listening to Mellark shout his apologies from behind him.

Taking the steps three at a time, the ice cream is starting to melt and he doesn't want to get it on his new jeans, Gale leaves Mellark to his fate and is up and through door to where Madge is slumped over on the couch.

She's still in her pajamas, hair a mess and sprawled out everywhere, fast asleep.

A little put out that he isn't going to receive a hero's welcome, and after riding with Mellark he definitely deserves one, Gale goes to the kitchen and puts the ice cream away.

Madge is sitting up, bleary eyed when he comes back in. He holds the plastic sack with her 'necessity' in it up for her to see and she gives him a weak smile.

"You are the sweetest man alive, you know that right?"

She gets up and grabs the sack from him, runs to the bathroom, and Gale tries not to think about what she's doing in there.

When she comes back in, face looking damp, she must've washed it in the few minutes she was gone, her arms wrap around Gale's waist and pull him with her to the bedroom.

Her bed is a silky nest and she snuggles into him, rubbing her doughy eyes with his shirt.

"Thank you for going to the store for me," she tells him. "I promise I'll make it up to you…later. Much, much later."

Gale runs his hand down her back, presses a kiss to her hair, and remembers Mellark's words.

"-go home and snuggle with her without expecting payback because she's doing you a favor by not beating you to a pulp."

Peeta Mellark is a wise, though slightly weird, man, and once again, Gale knows he should heed his advice.

He tightens his arms around Madge. "You don't have to make it up to me. I didn't go get you that stuff for a reward."

Not really, he'd wanted a little praise, but then who wouldn't?

"I went because you feel like crap and I love you." He kisses her puckered little lip. "Okay?"

She nods sleepily, her allergy medication catching up with her again. Her eyes flutter shut as she slips into a quiet nap, still wrapped around him.

Gale wiggles, gets himself comfortable once again taking his place as her pillow.

The day hadn't been as horrible as he'd expected it to be, all things considered.

But one thing is for certain; first chance he gets Gale is taking Mellark's iPod and adding some decent music. Even if 'Margaritville' is kind of catchy.


	18. Spa day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. I also don't own facebook or instagram, just to be clear. I don't own anything.

Early June between Freshman and Sophomore Year

Gale crosses his arms over his chest. He can't believe he let Mellark talk him into this.

If he'd have kept his shoes on it wouldn't even be an issue, but it was pushing Hades levels of hot and Gale's feet were in dire need of freedom.

"Gale, man, those are some rough looking tootsies you've got there," Peeta had told him, eyeing Gale's bare feet with undisguised horror.

It hadn't bothered Gale, other than having his toes referred to as 'tootsies'. His feet were clean, didn't smell, and his nails were trimmed. That was a trifecta of perfection in his mind, but apparently not for Peeta.

"You're coming with me for a pedicure day," Peeta had cheerfully informed him a few weeks later, holding a pair of papers with the name of a local spa on them. "I got coupons!"

"No," Gale had told him firmly. It was bad enough he'd let the bastard talk him into watching 'Steel Magnolias' with him one Tuesday evening when the girls had been in late classes. Gale hadn't cried during it, no matter what Mellark said. It was allergies. He was allergic to one of the stupid cookies Mellark had made, that was all.

"I'm not getting a pedicure." He still had some masculinity left in him.

"Gale, your feet would scare small children," Peeta had said with a smile. "Do it for Madge. I can't believe she lets those gnarly things in her bed."

It had taken him a week of badgering, right up to the day his coupons expired, but he finally wore Gale down.

Now though, Gale is regretting letting Mellark claim the victory. This is not a place where guys like Gale come. He tries to fake a call, make a run for it, but Mellark snatches his phone away and shakes his head.

"I'm doing you a favor. Trust me, Gale." More dangerous words have never been spoken.

Reluctantly, Gale takes a seat, slumps down and prays he doesn't see anyone he knows and wants the respect of.

The little woman with bright red lipstick comes around the counter and waves to them. "Hello, Peeta! So good to see you again!"

She, like most females, is under Mellark's spell, smiling and hugging him like he's her own son.

They're directed to a pair of chairs with little tubs of colored water in front of them. Gale's a little suspicious, but if Mellark can do it with that stupid grin on his face, then so can he.

Mellark starts playing on his phone, leans over and grabs Gale by the neck. "Smile!"

He snaps a picture on his phone, pulls back and begins tooling away on it.

"Why did you do that?" Other than blackmail, obviously.

"I checked us in as having a spa day. I wanted to have a picture to go with it," Mellark tells him as he taps away on the screen of his phone. "Just posted it to facebook and instagram."

Great. Because avoiding people in real life isn't enough, now Gale has to go out of his way to avoid people he hates online as well.

He wouldn't even have a facebook account if not for Mellark. In fact, technically, he doesn't. Peeta Mellark has a facebook account with Gale's name on it. It had existed for several months without Gale's knowledge after Mellark had realized he didn't have one.

"How can you not have one? Even Katnisshas one," he'd sputtered, at a complete loss.

Gale had pointed out that Katniss only had one because Prim had literally begged her to make one, and that she only uses it occasionally. Unlike Mellark.

After Gale had threatened to delete it, Mellark had refused to give him the password. Gale had been forced to sit back and watch as things were added to his timeline, likes, and he 'friended' people he'd loathed with a passion. It had taken an intervention by Madge to get some level of control over the stupid thing. She now has the password, though she'd apparently made some kind of blood oath not to give it to Gale.

"I'll unlike 'My Little Pony' and take 'interpretive dance' off your list of skills, okay?" She'd told him.

It had been a small consolation, but at least he'd also talked her into un-friending Rhys Mellark too.

The only good thing about his stupid facebook page has been getting to see pictures of his siblings that Rory posted. And getting to put he was 'in a relationship' with Madge.

"Instagram?" Gale groaned.

"Yeah, you know, the picture-"

"I know what instagram is," Gale cut him off. He runs his hands through his hair, sticking it up on end. "How many instagram, uh, followers or whatever, do you have?"

In other words, how many more people is Gale being embarrassed in front of?

"A few," Mellark answered evasively.

It would later turn out that a few actually meant a few hundred, which might as well be a few million as far as Gale is concerned.

More than a little put out, Gale huffs and flops back into the chair, hoping against hope that Madge has the password to Mellark's account and can delete the offending photo before too many people see it.

A pair of women come over, chatting with each other in a language Gale has no hope of understanding before plopping down in front of Mellark and Gale and pulling one foot out of the water at a time.

They begin asking Mellark about Katniss, inquiring about his studies and his brothers, then looking down at his and Gale's feet and making remarks to each other.

"What are they saying?" Gale asks Mellark. He doesn't like being on the outside of a conversation even if he has no desire to be an actual part of it.

Mellark's blonde eyebrows rise. "How should I know? I just barely speak English."

Gale frowns.

A big smile forms on Mellark's dopey face. "They're probably just trying to figure out how to get all the hair out of the drain when they finish with you."

The frown on Gale's face morphs into a scowl. "I'm not hairy."

He has a normal amount of body hair. It's just a sign he has a healthy amount of testosterone. At least he's pretty sure that's what it meant. Gale slouches back down in the chair, determined not to speak to Mellark again. Maybe for the rest of their lives.

"I'm not saying you're hairy," Mellark says. "I'm just saying that if I ever hear about a Sasquatch being spotted on campus I'll assume it's you streaking."

Gale growls at him, looks sharply in the opposite direction.

For almost an hour they work on his feet. Gale won't admit it, but it's pretty relaxing. Half-way through he actually nods off.

"Hey Gale," he hears Mellark say, poke him in the shoulder. "Time to go."

Gale startles awake, sits up and rubs his eyes. "Done?"

Mellark nods. "Yeah. Since you fell asleep I picked your color for you. Hope you like 'Cotton candy pink'."

In a panic, Gale looks at his feet, terrified he's about to see his precious tootsies painted some horrible pastel pink. Mercifully, though, they're still their natural color, just much nicer looking.

"I can't believe you actually fell for that," Mellark snickers.

"I hate you," Gale grumbles, brushing past him and out the door into the late afternoon sun.

#######

"Gale," Madge giggles, clambering over her bed and putting her hands on his shoulders and gently massaging the knots out. "No, you are not 'Sasquatch'."

Her hands are like magic as they tighten and loosen on his back. She shifts, presses herself against him and puts her lips to his ear.

"And even if you were, you'd be the sexiest Sasquatch around." She wraps her legs around his middle and lets her chin rest on his shoulder. "You had fun today, didn't you?"

He grunts at that. It's hard to be annoyed with her body on him like it is.

She starts kissing his neck, trying to butter him up and make him admit he'd enjoyed himself getting his feet fixed up with Mellark. It's important to her that they get along. Mellark is her best friend, practically her brother, and if Gale is going to be a part of her life for as long as he plans on it then he has to make nice with the idiot. He should've come to grips with the fact that he was stuck with the human golden retriever when Katniss refused to dump him even after he'd taken her to a karaoke bar for their third date. Now with Madge he's just doubled his time with the golden boy.

Madge's cool little fingers begin working at the buttons on his shirt.

Gale relaxed back into her.

If this is going to be his reward every time he plays nice with the big blonde doofus then he'll plan a spa day for the both of them every week for the rest of the summer.

Plus his feet really do look fantastic.


	19. Motel of misery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

August between Freshman and Sophomore Year

"I think I'll sleep in the car," Madge tells Gale the instant she sees the inside of the motel he'd picked. It's ten times shadier on the inside than on the out, and that's saying something.

They're on their way home from some kind of conference that Gale's internship required him to attend. The conference itself had been fun, at least for Madge. She'd spent it mostly shopping and meeting up with Gale for lunch, then exploring less savory parts of the city when he got out in the evenings.

The trip down had been easy, a short direct flight, but somehow Gale had talked Madge into driving back.

"It'll be fun," he'd told her as he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled his face into her neck. "We'll get to spend a little extra time together."

Then he'd given her his most pathetic face and she'd been a goner.

Now though, she's regretting it whole heartedly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Gale tells her, carefully setting their bags on the little desk in the corner. "This place is fine."

Scowling at his back, Madge rolls her eyes and finds mirrors on the ceiling.

"Don't take your shoes off," she tells him quickly, pointing up. "They probably make pornos here."

Lord only knows what horrible things are growing on the threadbare and stained carpet below their feet. It looks like it's been there since before disco died, so she assumes bodily fluids and numberless drugs are trapped in its faded depths.

"They do not make pornos here," Gale grumbles. Madge notices he doesn't take off his shoes though.

Using the tiniest part of her finger tips, Madge pulls the bedspread down, almost tossing it off. Who knows what diseases are lurking in the cheap, thin material? Madge isn't about to lose an arm to some new strain of antibiotic resistant STD that might creep into a scratch on her skin by sleeping with that nasty looking thing on her. Even if Gale is rolling his eyes at her. She read somewhere that the bedspreads were one of the dirtiest things in rooms like this.

"There are mirrors on the ceiling, Gale. They make pornos here."

She should've stopped him from getting the room the minute she saw the man with no shirt or shoes pushing the cleaning cart. That has to be a health code violation, no matter what state they're in. Plus they had hourly rates listed. No reputable place has hourly rates. This place is probably packed full of hookers and johns.

The man at the desk probably thinks Madge is a hooker. Great.

"This is the kind of place where people wake up after a night of drinking, sitting in a tub of ice and missing a kidney," Madge adds as she goes to the bathroom and eyes the tub with suspicion. It's dingy and she instantly wonders why they even put tubs in hotels and motels. It isn't particularly hygienic.

"That's an urban legend and you know it," Gale tells her, sounding increasingly annoyed.

Madge sticks her tongue out at him when his back is turned.

With a sigh she looks at the bed again. At least she won't be getting bed bugs. She's pretty sure they can't live on waterbeds.

Gently, Madge sits on the sloshy bed. It rolls under her and her stomach does the same.

Definitely make pornos here.

Despite feeling filthy, and not just from her current surroundings, Madge decides that to sleep and drag Gale out of the cesspool the second the sun comes up. Sponging off in a truck stop bathroom is definitely a better choice than trying to take a shower in their room. There are probably cameras everywhere and she has no desire to be part of the creeper at the front desks late night closed circuit television show.

Gale flops onto the bed, nearly sending Madge to the floor with the shifting waters.

He catches her though, and pulls her back towards him.

"Don't even think about anything," she grumbles as she curls into him. She isn't in the mood and the less skin she has exposed in this place the better. Just the thought of sleeping in the bed is making her skin crawl. They had better hope they washed the sheets in bleach.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he chuckles. It vibrates through his chest and Madge presses to it to calm her frayed nerves.

When his hand makes its way up the back of her shirt and begins fiddling with the clasp of her bra Madge pinches his side as hard as she can and gives him a filthy look.

"I said 'don't', Gale." No amount of puppy-dog eyes is going to move her on this point. There aren't enough luffas and strawberry scented body scrub in the world to cleanse her skin of whatever horrible things are lurking on the bed.

Gale tries anyway.

When Madge's only response is a wrinkled nose and a glance up at the mirrored ceiling, he sighs.

"Fine."

Looking exaggeratedly disappointed, Gale rolls over and grabs the control.

Madge cringes. She's heard the remote is one of the other dirtiest things in a hotel room.

Before she can give him this bit of information though, he's clicking the television on.

Madge's heavy lids, which had finally drooped closed when Gale wrapped his arm around her again, pop open when she hears a moan. She sits up and squints at the television. "What are you watching?"

Frantically, Gale is clicking through the channels, but there appears to only be one channel. And it isn't the weather channel.

"It's the only thing on," he tells her, his face darkening in color as he continues to rapidly search for something not explicit.

Catching only glimpses of the scenes on the television as Gale flies through the channels, Madge thinks she sees familiar décor. A mirror on the ceiling or two, and a tub she's certain she recognizes. That might just be her imagination though.

As quickly as he'd turned it on, Gale clicks the television off and tosses the control onto the bedside table.

"Who needs TV?" He laughs a little uncomfortably, his eyes looking anywhere but at Madge.

Certainly not them, at least Madge doesn't think so. Boys are weird though, Gale might've watched it if she weren't there. She doesn't know, and she really doesn't want to know.

He reaches over and pulls the faded looking chain on the bedside lamp, sending the room into darkness, with the exception of the neon glow from the motel sign out the window and the occasional headlight from some unsuspecting traveler pulling in, lured by the low, low prices.

A thought suddenly pops into Madge's mind.

"Do you think there's enough room under a waterbed to hide a body?"

Gale groans. "God, Madge, I don't know. I don't think so."

She doesn't either, but then again she didn't even know waterbeds still existed. This place may very well be in possession of the last waterbeds in the country. They're practically antiques.

Trying to push out the thought of some poor person trapped under the watery behemoth she and Gale are trying to sleep on, Madge closes her eyes and wraps herself a little tighter around Gale.

Tomorrow night either she's picking the motel or they are definitely staying in the car.


	20. The one with Madge's folks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine
> 
> AN: Okay, so, this one has an ectopic pregnancy (which are pretty dangerous and painful) and surgery in it, if that sort of thing bothers anyone. Just a warning. Sorry, bye

October, Soph Year

Gale sits on the hard little chair next to the stretcher and holds Madge's hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.

She's cold and pale, well, paler than usual, but at least she's comfortable now. Whatever combination of medication the nurse that had started her IV had given her had clearly worked.

When she shifts, grimaces a little and pulls her blanket up to her chest-the holding room is an icebox-Gale feels his stomach clench up. This is all his fault.

They were careful, he was careful, but somehow that hadn't been enough.

"Condoms are only effective like ninety-seven percent of the time," Birdy, Madge's obnoxious coworker that had driven her to the emergency room after she'd almost collapsed at work, had told Gale after she explained to him what was wrong with his girlfriend. "Didn't you ever watch 'Friends'?"

He hadn't responded to that, just brushed past her and into Madge's room, hoping she took the hint and left. Of course she hadn't

"I called her mom," she'd continued to talk, as though he weren't very pointedly ignoring her. "She and the stepdad are heading up."

Great. This was just how Gale wanted to meet Madge's parents, with her going to surgery for some kind of ruptured pregnancy thing.

It was the 'pregnancy' part of the whole thing that he was hung up on. 'Pregnancy', and all the implications that went with it, was going to make his first introduction to Madge's mom and stepdad unbearably awkward. Gale actually thinks Madge's first meeting with his parents, which included Gale groping her on his couch, is a preferable alternative. At least the first impression his parents had of her wasn't that she had put their son in the hospital with careless sexual practices. Not that Gale had been careless, but that's certainly what it looks like.

After Birdyfinally left, Gale had apologized, endlessly, to Madge for putting her into her current position.

"Gale, it takes two," she reminded him gently, despite being curled up in a ball on the stretcher.

"Yeah, but-"

"Don't try to take all the credit." A sleepy smile had formed on her lip and her eyes drifted shut, the pain and nausea meds had started working around that point. "You might have super sperm that not even a condom can contain, but I must have magnetic eggs, right?"

Her joke didn't exactly making sense, at least not to him, but Gale had nodded anyway. She was a light weight with drinking and he guesses pain medication too, plus, he had put her there so he wasn't going to upset her by pointing out what he felt was faulty logic.

"Why didn't you tell me you thought you were pregnant?" He finally asked her, worried what the answer was going to be.

She frowned. "Honestly? I didn't know. Things have been so crazy with school starting up, I guess I wasn't paying attention."

Gale is pretty sure if he hemorrhaged once a month he'd notice if it didn't happen, but he keeps that to himself. He quietly looks up apps to track her cycle while she drifts in and out of sleep. If she isn't going to keep track of it, he can at least try, no matter how awkward it's going to be.

They'd let him go with her to holding, while they waited for the surgical team to arrive, which is where he is currently, brushing her sweaty hair, memorizing the softness of her expression, and counting her breaths.

Running his free hand over his face, Gale sighs.

Something about Madge going to surgery, being cut on and exposed, makes him very uncomfortable. He wishes he could go back with her and make sure each and every member of the surgical team treated her respectfully, because he doesn't know what's going to happen to her once she's out of his sight and that makes the knot in his stomach tighten even more.

Even after having had his appendix out over the summer, and being an ace patient he might add, Gale doesn't want Madge to have to go through all that, especially over something that is completely his fault.

"There's a couple of people here to see you," the nurse tells Gale as she softly pats his shoulder.

Getting up, Gale kisses Madge's forehead and assures her he'll be back, even though she's soundly sleeping at this point and probably doesn't hear a word he says.

He expects Katniss and Peeta. They'd gone to the lake with Peeta's brothers, but Gale had called them and talked to Peeta, told him what was going on with Madge, and they'd promised to get back as soon as they could.

What he finds, however, is a middle aged pair that are about as far from Peeta and Katniss as it gets.

The woman is obviously Madge's mother. She's slight, with soft blonde hair pulled back in a wild looking bun, and wide, hazy blue eyes. It's not hard to guess which parent Madge clearly favors.

Beside her is a man, almost Gale's height, with graying hair and a slight belly. His wrinkled face shifts into a scowl the minute he spots Gale.

Stopping, Gale considers turning around and running back into the holding room with Madge, but doesn't. He's going to have to face them eventually.

When he finally reaches them, after an uncomfortably long walk across the room, Gale isn't sure what to say.

'Sorry I knocked her up, but at least it didn't take' doesn't sound quite right.

Before he can put his foot in his mouth though, Madge's mother throws her arms around him. "It's so good to meet you."

He isn't sure what the appropriate response to being hugged by his girlfriend's mother when he hasn't really met her yet is, so he just puts his hands on her shoulders and grunts, "Nice to meet you too, uh, ma'am."

She lets go, smiles up at him in a vague sort of way and shakes her head.

"Call me Matilda." She takes his hands and gives them a squeeze, head tilting a bit as she looks up at him. "And you're Gale. You're just as handsome as Madge said, isn't he Haymitch?"

Gale feels his face heat up and tries not to smile too much, especially when he catches Madge's stepdad's still soured expression. It's pretty apparent he doesn't find Gale all that handsome, or even remotely charming for that matter.

"How's our girl?" He asks, voice cold and sharp, eyes narrowed on Gale.

Swallowing down a bit of bile, Gale extracts his hands and shoves them in his pockets before fixing his eyes on the floor.

"She's doing better. They're waiting on the surgical team. Had to, uh, call them in since it's the weekend," he reaches up and rubs the back of his neck. "They got her some medicine though, so she's sleeping now."

Looking back at Madge's mother, Gale gestures to the holding room door.

"You can go back and see her," he mumbles. "It's one at a time."

Matilda looks back at her husband, hair floating gently around her head as she does, and smiles softly. "I'll go first."

Despite the impressive death glare etched on his face, directed at Gale, her husband smiles for her. "Of course, sweetheart."

He leans over and presses a kiss to her cheek before nudging her toward the doors.

She floats away, looking as if she might accidently drift off in the wrong direction for a moment, across the room and through the doors, leaving Gale and her husband standing in an increasingly awkward silence in the waiting room.

Gale glances over, finds he's once again receiving a 'go to hell' look, and sighs.

He's never met Haymitch Abernathy, but he's heard plenty about him.

Hometown hero with a tragic family history, he was a football star that had a full ride but ended up leaving it all behind to join the service. He'd come home and used what was left of the insurance money from his family's death to buy into a company with a friend and made millions.

He's an unlikely success story, a recluse, and a cranky philanthropist if the papers are to be believed. According to Madge, he's also a devoted husband.

"Mom't therapy, all her medication to keep her headaches manageable, it's enough to scare anyone off, but Mr. Abern-Haymitch, he's known her his whole life. He's very supportive."

"Was your dad not?" Gale had asked. He hadn't met any of her family, but she'd always spoke of her father so well, it was hard to imagine him not caring about her mother, despite their divorce.

She'd given him a small, unreadable look. "My dad was, he stillis, but…it's…my family is a bit complicated."

Now, standing in uncomfortable silence in the middle of a deserted waiting room with him, Gale knows two things. One, Haymitch's devotion to his wife, his clear love for her, extends to Madge, and two, Gale wishes he knew more about the complications in Madge's family, it would make talking less risky.

"So," Gale begins, "how-uh-how are you?"

Brilliant question. No wonder he's always hit it off with his ex-girlfriends' parents. He's so smooth it hurts.

He holds out his hand, which is embarrassingly sweaty, out. He might as well try to make nice, even if he's pretty sure he's shot his chances at making a good impression on Madge's moody stepdad all to hell just by existing.

Haymitch's eyebrows rise. "How am I?" They pull together severely. "My little girl is about to have surgery because of her asshole boyfriend, how do you think I am?"

Not well then.

Gale's hand drops and he stuff both of them into his pockets again, dropping his gaze back to the floor and praying for Madge's mother to come out and put an end the tension. With her there Gale is at least a little more certain he won't end up flayed by a pocket knife.

"You defiled my little girl," he growls. "You got her pregnant, and you didn't even do that right, and now she's sick."

Gale starts to point out that the doctor had told them that ectopic pregnancies were no one's fault, they just happen sometimes, but since he kind of agrees that this is all his doing, he just keeps his mouth shut and his eyes on the ground.

He grabs Gale by the front of his shirt, startling him into looking up.

"If anything happens to her I will cut you up into a thousand little asshole pieces and feed you to 'Tilda's cat, understand?" He growls, his hot breath burning against Gale's sweaty face.

Even if he deserves to have his ass kicked, and Gale fully thinks he does at the moment, his natural instinct kicks in and he pushes Haymitch away. He gives him a narrow look.

"Trust me," he says, his voice almost breaking. "If something happens to her because of this you won't get a fight out of me."

Haymitch squints at him, scrutinizes him for a minute, and opens his mouth to say something, but gets cut off by Matilda's return.

"Haymitch," she smiles at him as she crosses the room, "Madge wants to talk to you, love. They said they're almost ready to take her."

She stops and stares at the two of them for a minute, blinking slowly as she tries to place a finger on what's transpiring between them, before sighing.

"Oh, Haymitch." Her pale eyes hover on him and her smile drops into a slight frown. "Were you fighting?"

In the blink of an eye Haymitch's dark look brightens and he smiles warmly, reaches out and cups Matilda's cheek. "Wouldn't dream of it, sweetheart."

Matilda's nose scrunches up, reminding Gale painfully of Madge, and she squints up at Haymitch, studying him for a moment before smiling again. "Good."

Stepping past her, Haymitch gives Gale a hateful look over the top of her head before heading toward the doors. As he disappears, Matilda reaches out and takes Gale's hand, giving it another squeeze.

"Don't mind him, dear, he's a bit overprotective."

Gale nods, though he thinks that if anything like this every happens to Posy he and his brothers will make Haymitch look restrained and well mannered by comparison.

Giving him a tug, Madge's mother pulls Gale down into one of the dozens of uncomfortable chairs lining the walls of the waiting room. She gives him a bright smile.

"I told Madge she needs to get her a doctor here and get on some birth control. Condoms just aren't one hundred percent-have you ever seen 'Friends? You should watch it.- and two kinds of prevention are better than one." She sighs, patting Gale's hand, apparently unaware that she's discussing his having sex with her daughter as if it were a normal thing to do. Gale feels his face burn.

"That's-Yeah." He isn't sure what she expects him to say. Actually, he isn't sure there's an appropriate response to the conversation they're having.

She smiles airily. "Children are a joy, no matter how they come-Madge was very unexpected you know?- but the two of you should probably finish school first."

Gale nods. He can't believe he's having this conversation.

Her hazy eyes drift over his shoulder and she sighs, lost in thought.

"And you'll have such pretty babies when you do," she adds, eyes floating back to him as she envisions her future grandchildren.

"Thanks," Gale manages to mumble, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the direction this conversation has taken.

He actually wants Haymitch to come back out. Getting his ass kicked is preferable to discussing birth with his girlfriend's mother now.

The doors swing open and Gale gets his wish. Haymitch appears, looking slightly less irritated now that he's seen Madge, at least for the moment, isn't dying.

"Wants to see you," he spits at Gale, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the doors, his tone letting Gale know he would rather eat a live slug than pass that particular message on .

Madge's mother gives his hand one last squeeze and an encouraging smile before he gets up and cuts across the room to the doors.

They've put a blue fluffy hair net hat on her, and she's a little more alert, her expression isn't as relaxed as it had been. He frowns.

"Do you need medicine?" He looks over at the nurse typing away on her computer. Why isn't she giving Madge medicine?

"I'm fine," Madge assures him, holding her hand out to him over the rail of her bed.

Gale wipes the sweat from his palm off onto his pants before he takes her chilly little fingers in his.

"They making you nervous?" She asks, her mouth flattening out and her eyebrows knitting together.

Gale just shrugs.

"She asked you about condoms, didn't she?" Madge sighs, her face turning pink as she presses her fingers to her eyes. "I asked her not to…"

That actually gets a laugh out of him. "She actually talked about getting you on the pill."

Madge groans. "I'm terrible with taking medicine."

Plopping down in the chair next to her, Gale presses a kiss to her fingertips. "I'll help you remember."

Anything to avoid this happening again.

"Plus, I don't want to give your stepdad a reason to cut my balls off." Gale leans in, resting his chin on the rail of the bed. "And you going home for Christmas break knocked up is less reason than he needs, trust me."

A little snort bursts out of Madge and she grimaces, bracing her stomach. Gale gets up, starts to yell for the nurse, but Madge quiets him with a look, gesturing for him to set down.

She gives him a soft look once he's back in his chair.

"Haymitch won't mutilate you, I won't let him," she tells him, reaching up and running her hand over the side of his hair. "And trust me, he wants grandkids someday."

"Not by the sound of it." In fact, Gale's pretty sure Haymitch would send Madge off to an abby, if that were something people still did.

Madge laughs quietly. "He's just worried. You two are a lot alike, actually."

Gale doubts that, but keeps the thought to himself.

"Alright," a new nurse says as she comes to the side of the bed. "Time to go. Crew's here."

The knot in Gale's stomach tightens as they unplug things, unlock the bed, and start to steer Madge away. He leans over the rail and presses a kiss to her lips, memorizing how soft they are and the taste of her strawberry chapstick.

"I'll see you in a bit," he whispers, just managing to keep his voice even. He's being ridiculous about this.

"Love you," he hears her voice over the clatter as they wheel her away.

The nurse hands him a bag, right before Madge disappears out of the room, leaving him standing in the middle of the room, staring at the spot she'd just left, clutching a bag of her personal items.

#######

Gale holds Madge's hair as she heaves fruitlessly into the little gray colored plastic bucket the nurse from the recovery room had given her.

"Anesthesia makes some people nauseated," she explained right before she gave Madge some medicine that was supposed to alleviate her dry heaves. So far it had been about as helpful as Gale felt, which was not at all.

When she finally finishes, flops back into the uncomfortable bed, grimacing and holding her stomach, Gale runs into the bathroom to grab a washcloth.

"Is there nothing else they can give her?" Haymitch asks, not even hiding the irritation in his voice. He shoots Gale a glare, reminding him that this is allhis fault and Haymitch isn't likely to forget it anytime soon, or ever, actually.

"I feel better," Madge assures him, despite her color being a chalky gray.

Her mother settles onto the bed beside her, smoothing her hair out and giving her a soft look.

"It's alright, love," she taps the end of Madge's nose, "they probably have a few things for this."

It takes nearly an hour before they get her dry heaves to subside, then an eternity more before she manages to keep a few sips of water down. By a little after one in the morning, though, she looks infinitely more comfortable.

"He wants to talk to you, Pearl," Haymitch had told her, gently holding out his cell phone to her after he finished talking to her father, who was stuck in South America on a business trip.

Madge hadn't been on the phone long, five or ten minutes at most, telling her father that she was fine, clearly contradicting whatever Haymitch had told him.

"No, dad, I'm not dying," she'd rolled her eyes and giving a sheepish looking Haymitch an agitated look. "I'm only staying because it's late and I was so nauseated. They want to do some blood work in the morning just as a precaution; otherwise I'd be at home."

She'd all but demanded they go to sleep after that.

Since they had nowhere to go, Madge's apartment was 'too far away' for Haymitch's liking and Gale hadn't even offered to let them stay at his place-he doubts they would've taken him up on the offer anyway-so they end up curled up on the pull out couch in the room.

"There are hotels," Madge points out, not looking thrilled at the prospect of having her mother and Haymitch having a sleepover with her and Gale in the hospital.

"I'm not paying to sleep for six hours," he grumbles. "Waste of money. Besides, I want to be here when that doctor comes by."

Madge doesn't argue, but she does mumble that Haymitch 'has plenty of money to burn', before curling up on her side with her back to them.

Gale struggles with the recliner for a minute, wedged between the sink and Madge's bed, before giving up and throwing a thin blanket over his legs.

He tries closing his eyes, but the whirl of the IV pump and the endless noises outside the door, combined with Haymitch glaring at him over the top of Matilda's blonde head until she forced him to lay down, make it a pointless effort. He didn't want to sleep anyway.

A cold hand reaches through the opening in the bed rail, twines with Gale's, and he looks over and sees that Madge isn't having any more luck getting rest than he is.

"Are you feeling better?" She asks, peering up at him, eyes glowing in the light from the IV pump.

He scowls. "Me? I didn't have surgery."

She's ridiculous.

Her nose wrinkles up. "You know what I mean." With a sigh, she wiggles in the bed, pulls herself up a little and leans over the rail. "This isn't your fault anymore than it's mine. You aren't still beating yourself up over it, are you?"

Gale shrugs. He is, and she can apparently sense it, because she takes his hand again and presses his fingertips to her lips.

"I'm fine. The doctor saved everything and I'm fine." A little smirk twitches up on her lips. "We can have all the little 'Hawthornes' we want someday. No problems."

That doesn't make him feel any better.

"Madge…"

"Unless you don't want any," she quickly adds, her smirk falling.

Gale huffs. "Of course I want kids."

It's just hard to think about that sort of thing when she's just had surgery for a pregnancy gone horribly wrong.

A relieved look flickers onto Madge's face, and she leans in conspiratorially. "Do-do you think about having kids? With me, I mean?"

Gale stares at her. He's planned out their life together since he was in high school. Marrying her, having kids with her, that had been his impossible fantasy, even if he'd die before admitting it to anyone but her. It's a bit stupid.

Instead of admitting all that, he just nods.

Madge lights up. "Really?'

She looks a bit shocked, as though Gale thinking about the future, theirfuture, had never crossed her mind. The thought is clearly pleasant though, if the faint blush creeping onto her cheeks is any indication.

"How many?" She asks suddenly.

Glancing over at the snoring Haymitch, Gale shrugs. He lowers his voice, talking about this is dangerous. If Haymitch hears whether or not they ever want kids won't be an issue, he'll make sure children aren't in Gale's future no matter who he's with. "Two?"

Madge's smile reappears. "You know, twins run in my family, we could knock two out of the way pretty quick."

Unable to keep it at bay, Gale laughs.

Haymitch's snores stutter for a minute, then resume, and Gale sighs in relief.

"Twins, huh? Sounds like a challenge," he whispers once he's certain Haymitch is back in a deep sleep.

"You up for it?" Her eyes are bright, and Gale thinks the medication is making her a little loopy still, but he kind of likes it.

Leaning in, Gale presses a kiss to her lips, still strawberry flavored. "Someday."

But not yet.

"Yeah," her smile drops a little. "My mom will probably have us stocked up on every kind of condom available within a ten mile radius."

Heat floods Gale's face.

Mellark will have a field day with Madge's mother's helpful contribution to Gale and Madge's sex life, and Gale braces himself for the inevitable, embarrassing next few days.

"You know, condoms are only ninety-seven percent effective?" He frowns, recalling Birdy and Madge's mother's tid bits of wisdom.

Madge's eyebrows rise slightly. "Gale, everyone knows that. Didn't you ever watch 'Friends'?"

Gale slumps in his chair. "No."

He's going to though, this is getting ridiculous.


	21. Quality Time With Haymitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

July before Junior Year

Gale wakes when the sunlight lazily makes its way through the curtains, coloring the room with yellow, early morning light. He covers his eyes with his arm and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow.

Only it isn't his pillow.

Pulling back, he stifles a groan.

It's Madge's hair, he can smell her raspberry shampoo fighting its way through the veil of smoke that's still clinging to her from the night before. She's sound asleep, her back to Gale, a contented smile on her face.

She isn't supposed to be in his room. Mellark is. That's the rule Haymitch had set down when they'd first arrived in Vegas.

They'd all come out with Gale for a conference.

"We can visit Treasure Island and the Bellagio's Fountain, ohhh, and there's a mob museum…" Mellark had spent nearly a week creating a pinterest board with affordable things to do while in Sin City, much to Katniss' annoyance.

"I am not-wait, what did you say about the buffet?"

Their flight out had been delayed, almost two hours, and they'd arrived at nearly two in the morning. Not that that seemed to make a difference in Vegas. It was as awake at two in the morning as it was at two in the afternoon.

"Gale, look!" Madge had squeezed his hand as they waited for their luggage to be pulled from the taxi. "There's some showgirls. We should take a picture with them."

"The only girl I'm taking a picture with is you." He was one-hundred percent sure those girls weren't real showgirls. "If you want to dress like a showgirl, though, I wouldn't mind."

Madge had cut him a look. "You say that now, but the first time a guy looks at me you'd have a meltdown."

Gale shrugged. She was probably right about that.

When they'd finally gotten to the desk to check in Gale had given his name.

"It's under 'Hawthorne'," he'd told them.

The woman had typed away, looking almost bored, until she apparently hit enter. Her eyes widen and she'd looked up at Gale, a little awestruck. "Give me a minute."

After only a few minutes, during which Madge had suspiciously stared at the ground, the woman came back with a man in a three piece suit in tow.

He looked briefly at Gale, then to Katniss before finally beaming at Madge.

"Miss Abernathy!"

Madge grimaced. "Undersee."

Not missing a beat, the man reached out and took her hand. "Oh, of course, Miss Undersee. So good to meet you. Mr. Abernathy anticipated your arrival, your rooms have been upgraded, free of charge."

"Oh, thanks, but-"

The man shushed her. "No, no my dear! We insist! A Two room suite is much more suitable. I insist."

Mellark, who was thumbing through a pamphlet, let out a gasp, eyes widening and jumping between the other three.

"Madge, it has a massage room and a kitchenette. You may get to enjoy the fruits of your parents' immense wealth, but this may be our only chance. Don't kill my dream."

For a long second Madge just stared at Mellark, expression somewhere between anxious and exasperated, before turning back to the man and sighing. "Oh, all right."

He took them to the very top of the hotel.

The room had a wide picture window and an amazing view of the strip, two bedroom, a dining area, a living area, and, as Mellark had said, a massage room. It was the swankiest room Gale had ever set foot in, and it was free. Not bad.

Or at least it had been.

Mellark, after running from room to room, examining the wonders of a complementary upgrade, and reading all the notes on the refrigerator and candy tray on top, finally grabbed Katniss by the hand and threw her over his shoulder.

"Come look at this tub!"

While Mellark was acting like a puppy on crack, Gale took his and Madge's bags to the room the planned on sharing.

"Not bad," he muttered.

Madge just sighed. "I hate it when he does this kind of thing."

"Why?" If Gale's parents worst trait was getting him into the nicest room in an expensive resort hotel he certainly wouldn't be complaining. It was actually a lucky break. Gale had already been dreading his credit card bill from his Vegas adventure.

"He's probably got the room bugged." She said, nose wrinkling up and eyes scanning the room. "He's nosey."

Not that Gale would've put it past Madge's step-dad to have the staff watching out for her, he doubted even Haymitch Abernathy had the power to bug a room. At least he'd hoped not.

Hoping to get her mind off her good fortune and her snoopy step-dad, Gale swept her up and tossed her on the bed. It was king sized and he planned on putting every inch of it to use before they left.

He'd just worked his hand up her skirt, almost had his thumbs under the band of her panties, when the door burst open and he was pulled bodily from his activity.

"Not on my watch, boy."

It took Gale a second to recover, shake his head and reorient from his new position on the floor, before he realized what exactly had just happened.

Glaring down at him, arms crossed, was Haymitch Abernathy.

"Haymitch!" Madge squeaked from the bed, pushing her skirt down and scrambling across the bed. "What are you doing here?"

His entire demeanor changed, from irritable to elated, as he turned his back to Gale and pulled Madge from the bed, into a hug.

"Man can't want to visit his kid?" He asked, frowning down at her.

Madge simply sighed. "You came to spy on me."

Haymitch shrugged. "Visit, spy, tomato, tamato. Like the room?" He asked, waving his hand out at the room. "Told them to hold it for you."

"Haymitch," Madge covered her face with her hand, "thank you, really, but we're on vacation-"

"I know," Haymitch assured her. "I know. Vacation. No parents." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "But when your parent has inside access…"

Mellark burst into the room, nearly bowling over Madge.

"Did you hear?" He grinned from ear to ear. "Tickets to any show we want! Reservations to any restaurant! VIP access!"

Katniss ran in, out of breath. "Buffet-all access-no lines-"

It had been downhill after that.

Haymitch set rules, which included girls in one room and the boys in another.

"You're using your money to dictate how we spend our time," Madge had grumbled, crossing her arms and shooting Haymitch a filthy look.

"Of course I am," he'd admitted. "What's the point of being rich if you can't throw a little weight around."

That weight apparently included keeping Madge and Gale apart, at least for the duration of their trip.

Katniss and Mellark were quick to agree, the prospect of free food and passes outweighing any annoyance they might've felt over having Haymitch dictate their sleeping arrangements.

"Gale, it's four days. Four days in the lap of luxury, all access passes and spa passes and a running bar tab." Mellark grinned from the bed. "Is four days sharing a bed with me really so bad when you consider what we're getting-for free?"

Gathering up his stuff, Gale would rather sleep on the couch than share a bed with Mellark, no matter how generous Katniss said he was with the blankets, Gale rolled his eyes.

It wasn't that Haymitch was making him share a room with Mellark, it wasn't even that he was cockblocking him in epic parental fashion, it was that, even after almost two years of dating, Haymitch still didn't trust or like Gale. He wouldn't give him a chance.

"It probably doesn't help that the first time he met you was because you put Madge in the hospital," Mellark had pointed out when he heard Gale's grumbling.

"I didn't put her in the hospital," Gale snapped. Even though he still felt like he had.

"Reality doesn't matter," Mellark shrugged. "What matters is what Haymitch sees, and what he sees is some guy who put his step-daughter in the hospital."

Gale clamped his mouth shut. The things he could tell Mellark about Haymitch Abernathy and reality.

Madge had told him, ages ago, about what a miserable human being Haymitch had been. After all the crap he'd pulled when he was younger, Gale would've thought that he would be a little more accepting, a little more understanding of mistakes. That was apparently not the case.

Throwing himself on the couch, Gale chose to ignore any truth in Mellark's words and covered his head with one of the pillows.

It was going to be along four days.

#######

While Gale spent his days in the depths of a convention, learning new tricks of the trade and about new projects, Madge, Katniss, and Mellark explored Vegas on Haymitch's generous ticket.

Well, Madge and Mellark explored, Katniss apparently started each day at a new all-you-can-eat buffet and stayed there.

"She's still there?" Gale had asked when he met the other two for his lunch break the second day.

"They just switched to the lunch buffet," Mellark sighed, setting his phone down. "Where is she putting all of it?"

"I wish I had that kind of metabolism," Madge had muttered, stabbing at her steak.

Giving her side a pinch, Gale had winked at her, leaned in for a kiss, only to be cut off by a chair being shoved between them.

"Fancy meeting you all here," Haymitch had grinned, settling down firmly between Gale and Madge.

"Hello, love," Madge's mother chirped airily, kissing Madge's cheek.

"What are you doing here?" Madge had asked, her lips in a confused frown.

Gale didn't know why she asked, Gale was positive Haymitch really was spying on them at that point. He'd shown up on the first day for lunch and dinner as well, stuck to their sides like an obnoxious leech.

"Katniss told us you all were coming here for lunch," Madge's mother answered, patting Gale's hand as she sat down in the chair Haymitch had shoved between Gale and Mellark. "So good to see you again, dear."

With a weak smile, Gale picked up his fork again and jabbed his steak, imagining it was Haymitch's eye.

Dinner wasn't much better.

Katniss was still parked, just like the evening before, right up until the casino told her to leave the buffet, and Gale, Madge, and Mellark were subjected to Madge's parents. Her mother was amusing, but Haymitch seemed to have made it his life's mission to drive Gale insane.

For three days, the duration of the conference, Gale spent breakfast with his fellow engineers, while lunch and dinner were spent in the miserable company of Haymitch Abernathy.

The fourth day, the only day Gale didn't have to spend locked up the majority of the time in the conference, he and Madge had a plan.

"Peeta is going to go with Katniss to the buffet and try to pry her out after lunch, so they can spend a little time together," Madge had explained. "You and I are going to get up at the crack of dawn and head out. My mom and Haymitch are late sleepers. We'll be guaranteed at least a few hours before he tracks us down."

It wasn't a great plan, but a few hours without Haymitch giving him the stink eye was better than nothing.

If only it had been that simple.

Gale and Madge's poolside breakfast, however, wasn't as free from interruption as they'd hoped.

Before Gale was even able to get his omelet halfway down Haymitch dropped into the seat next to him.

"No," Madge quickly said, shaking her head. "No, Haymitch, this is Gale's last day. You've had your time and then some. I'm spending this day with Gale."

Haymitch held up his hands, chuckled. "I'm not here to spend more time with you, sweetheart. I'm here to spend time with junior."

He reached over and snatched a strawberry from Madge's bowl, popped it in his mouth with a grin. "Didn't you say you wanted me to get to know him?"

Gale isn't sure whose mouth hung open farther, his or Madge's. She blinked several times, simply stared at Haymitch before finally getting her mouth to work again. "Well…yeah…I did say that…"

"No time like the present then," Haymitch's grin had widened, stealing another berry from Madge's breakfast. "How's your golf game, son?"

Unable to fully process what he'd been asked, Gale just nodded. "Uh, okay I guess."

"Great," Haymitch slapped the table. "Tee time is at nine. 'Tilda's getting ready."

#######

Madge ended up at the club house with her mother while Haymitch and Gale spent some 'quality time' getting to know each other.

The first hour or so was spent in awkward silence, Haymitch driving the golf cart and Gale imaging being beaten to death with a nine iron.

If anyone could hide the body, it was Haymitch Abernathy, Gale was positive he has mob ties.

"So," Haymitch finally began, "you're an engineer, huh?"

Gale nodded, stared out at the green oasis and wondered how much water they used to keep it that way. Probably too much. It made him think of that stupid lizard movie Madge had made him watch.

"You're working for who again?" Haymitch lined up his shot, hit the ball and sent it down the fairway.

They watched it fly, gracefully, then roll to a stop.

"Nice." Gale nodded before lining up his own shot.

His went several yards closer to the green than Haymitch's and he battles down a smirk.

"Got on with a new company," Gale finally answered. "Working on sustainability projects."

"Electric cars?"

Gale tries not to roll his eyes. Everyone always went with electric cars.

"Energy renewal," Gale muttered. He hated explaining his work sometimes.

Haymitch just grunted, took a long drink of his beer, which Gale had watched him sneak onto the course.

When they reached the spot where their balls had landed, both decent shots, they get out and Haymitch pulled out a club, eyed it for a few seconds, then looked at Gale.

"Alright," he sighed, "what are your plans for Madge?"

Gale just stared at him for several seconds. "What?"

"Madge, my daughter, pretty blonde girl you were mauling the other night." He eyed Gale in irritation. "Her. What are your plans with her?"

"I don't understand." The sun had apparently not agreed with Haymitch's drinking.

Taking the club, Haymitch roughly pushed it back into the bag and flopped back into the golf cart. He looked out at Gale, eyes narrowed.

"I know what kind of man you are, Hawthorne," he growled. "I know because we're a lot alike."

Putting his own club back into the bag, Gale let out a dark laugh. "Alike?"

That was the same thing Madge had told him, ages ago, when he'd first met her parents. He and Haymitch were alike.

"Yeah, alike you little shit," Haymitch took another drink of his beer. "We're smart, we're driven, and we hurt people."

"I'm not going to hurt Madge," Gale snapped. "I'm not like you. I'm not going to bail at the first sign of trouble."

Haymitch's eyes widen, he'd apparently not expected Madge to divulge the twisted story of her family.

It was either better or worse than a daytime soap opera.

"Haymitch was driving the car the night my aunt was killed, when my mom got her injury," she'd told him. "They got close after, really close, then Haymitch went off to college and my mom found out she was pregnant."

Gale had almost groaned, he knew exactly where her little tale was going.

"He was just a semester in and he-I guess it scared him. He didn't know if he could take care of me or my mother and-and then he just went into the service, just to get away and not have to deal with any of it." She covered her face, pressed her fingers to her eyes. "You know how people are back home, Gale, how they look at unmarried mothers still, and my mother…you've met her. She wouldn't make it on her own."

Madge's father, the man that had raised her, an old friend of Haymitch's from years of playing football, had stepped up. He'd married Matilda, and for eight years raised Madge as his own.

"My dad, he's a fixer, he sees a problem and he wants to fix it, and my mother needs fixing more than most." Madge picked at her nails. "It's not healthy, I know that, but I am grateful for it. He saved us. My mother and him are the best of friends now, and Haymitch-he learned from his mistake-he came back and fixed things up with my mom and he and my dad get along famously-"

"He just dumped your mom because she got pregnant?" Gale nearly dropped his beer.

"He-Gale, I'm not defending him, but he was young and stupid-"

"And a complete asshole," Gale crossed his arms. How could she think he and Haymitch were anything alike?

"Gale, you spent years making me think you hated me. Haymitch spent years running from what he knew he needed to do. And you know what? You both grew up, you both changed, and you both want what's best for me now." She'd taken his hand. "I know he's rough around the edges, but he's just making up for all the years he feels like he failed me. All the years he missed."

In Gale's opinion, Haymitch had done far more than fail her, but he kept that to himself, Madge clearly loved the bastard, even if she shouldn't have.

"You don't know a damn thing," Haymitch growled. "I didn't-"

"Abandon your pregnant girlfriend?" Gale crossed his arms, he was through taking Haymitch's crap. "Yeah, from what Madge told me, you did. And what did I do when Madge was in the hospital because she was pregnant and sick? I was there. You weren't even there when she was born, for any of her mother's pregnancy, and you have the balls to tell me we're alike?"

Gale started to stomp off, but stopped when he heard Haymitch call for him.

He waved his hand, gesturing for Gale to rejoin him in the cart. Reluctantly, Gale does.

"Look," Haymitch ran his hand over his face, "do you think I don't know I'm a bastard? That I don't know I failed Madge and Matilda?"

"I was nineteen and stupid and scared. I let that cost me eight years with my daughter. I missed her first words, her first steps, her first day of school, all her firsts…she called me 'Mr. Abernathy' until she was sixteen for christsakes!" He shook his head.

"Well I'm a college graduate with a good job and-"

"But for years you were the little bastard that treated her like dirt." Haymitch jabbed Gale in the chest sharply. "I remember her coming home from school crying 'cause 'Gale Hawthorne' made fun of her for acing a test or you and your punk friends laughed at her when she fell during a program."

Gale felt a knot form in his stomach. Madge had never told him he'd made her cry.

"How do I know you aren't going to turn around and hurt her again?"

"Madge trusts me," Gale said softly after a minute of thought. "She trusts me and she trusts you. She adores you. She's forgiven you, you asshole. Whether either one of us deserves her forgiveness or her love doesn't matter, we don't get to make that call, Madge does. Do you trust her judgment?"

Haymitch narrowed his eyes. "She's put her faith in us, what do you think?"

Gale stifled a chuckle. "True."

They sat there, probably annoying whoever was playing behind them, for several minutes before Haymitch broke the silence.

"Do you love her?"

Looking over, Gale sees Haymitch staring intently at the green in the distance, purposely not looking at him.

"More than anything," he answered. "I'm gonna spend the rest of my life making up for every shitty thing I ever did to her and making her cry."

Madge wasn't as wrong as Gale had thought, Haymitch and Gale really were alike.

They'd both failed her, or failed to let themselves be with her as soon as they could, and they were both making up for that. They'd probably be making up for it for the rest of their lives.

"Good," Haymitch nods. "And just so we're clear, if you ever do hurt her, I'll skin you alive."

Gale rolled his eyes. "Yeah."

He expected no less.

#######

After their conversation Haymitch and Gale finished their game and met up with Madge and Matilda at the clubhouse.

"I see no missing limbs and neither one of you have blood on your clothes." Madge's eyebrows rose. "Both of you are still alive, I take it things went well."

"I was a delight," Haymitch told her with a grin. He jerked his thumb at Gale. "Boyfriend is a dick though."

"He's just mad that I won," Gale whispered to her as he leaned in and quickly kissed her cheek, earning nothing more than a small look of annoyance from Haymitch. Better than a kick in the shins though.

After lunch, and going through the clothes Madge and her mother had bought while Gale and Haymitch were golfing, Haymitch sat back in his chair and patted his belly.

"Well, guess we should be heading out." Haymitch stood up and reached out, pulled Madge's mother from her seat. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of Madge's head. "Call when you get home, sweetheart."

"You're leaving?" Madge looked incredulous.

"Your mother and me are heading to New York. She talked me into getting her tickets to some stupid Broadway thing." He didn't look pleased with that, but Matilda certainly did.

"We'll see you at Thanksgiving, love," Gale heard Madge's mother tell her as she gave her a goodbye hug.

Haymitch hit Gale on the back. "See you later, bastard."

"Whatever, asshole."

Then they were gone. Leaving Gale and Madge sitting in the stuffy clubhouse with their half eaten food.

"They're flight isn't until this evening." Madge frowned.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Gale grinned, pouring the last of the wine into his glass.

#######

They went on a tour of the strip after that, visiting every smoke filled casino they could.

Madge ended up at a poker table and winning what Gale felt was a healthy amount of cash.

"It's not the most I've ever won," she told him as he'd counted her winnings.

"What? Are you a regular at the poker tables?"

She snorted. "No, but I did regularly take Haymitch to the cleaners when I was younger. He and my dad had a weekly poker game and they taught me."

Gale, slightly tipsy, they still had the an open tab at the bar and Haymitch was covering after all, had laughed at the thought of Madge beating the pants off Haymitch.

His laughter dies when he remembers their conversation from earlier and the revelation that he'd made her cry when they were younger.

"I'm sorry I was such an ass, you know, before we got together."

Madge frowned, took his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. "Gale, what brought this on? Did Haymitch say something to you?"

With a shrug, Gale stared at her hand, how her fingers laced with his. He'd forfeited years with her because of pride and stupidity, and he'll never really forgive himself for that.

"We just talked, came to an understanding." He smiled at her, squinted at her through the haze of the casino.

Her lips twitched up. "What kind of understanding?"

Gale looked out at the flashing lights of the games, listened to the chiming and dinging signaling people making and losing money by the minute before he turned back to her.

"We're both idiots."

Madge snorted again. "Okay."

He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers, lifted her up and listened to her make a muffled noise when his hand slipped up the back of her shirt.

"Gale," she finally wiggled away as he came up for air, "we are in the middle of the casino."

"Who cares?" He certainly didn't, not after three solid days of having Haymitch interrupt any attempt he made to so much as hold her hand.

He dove back in, peppering her with kisses while she laughed and looked around, her face increasingly red as people started staring.

"I love you so much," Gale finally murmured against her skin, soaking in the warmth he'd been denied for the entirety of the trip.

Dipping down, he picked her up and spun her around, before lumbering off the floor and toward the strip.

"Gale, where are we going?"

The air was warm, but dry and pleasant after the chill of the casino floor, and with Madge firmly in his grip, even if the sun had been beating down Gale wouldn't have cared.

"Back to the hotel. Mellark can sleep with his gassy girlfriend tonight. I'm taking the bed back."

#######

His memories all firmly back in place, Gale snuggles back down in the bed and wraps his arms around Madge's middle.

A lazy smile forms on her lips as she tilts her head and presses a kiss to his jaw.

"Sleep well?"

He pinches her side and she squeals, slapping his hand away.

"I'm glad you and Haymitch are getting along," she murmurs as she rolls over and wraps her arms around his middle and presses her cheek to his chest. "It makes our sleeping arrangement so much more pleasant."

"Mellark warned you Katniss is a wild sleeper."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well…"

Gale kisses her again. He's missed it.

When he pulls back, sees the contented expression on her soft features and half lidded eyes, he can't stop the words from spilling out of his mouth.

"Marry me."

Madge's eyes fly open, wide and blue, shocked. "What?" She sits up, holding the comforter to her chest. "Now?"

Visions of an Elvis impersonator declaring them man and wife in a tacky chapel flashes before Gale's eyes. Rings from a pawn shop, souvenirs of an unpleasant end to someone else's happily ever after, being exchanged without either of their families present. He shakes his head.

"Not now, I just got Haymitch to not want to punch me everytime he sees me," Gale pushes a wild strand of hair behind her ear. "Eventually. After you get out of school."

Leaning in, Gale presses a kiss to her lips, softly, a promise, before breathing in her sleepy scent, stale cigarette smoke and raspberry shampoo.

"Madge, I love you. I have loved you since before I knew what I was feeling, since I saw you at Katniss' house that first time. I've wanted to marry you since the first time I kissed you. I want to spend the rest of my life waking up to you and your bed head. Marry me."

For a few seconds Madge just stares at him, their lips a breath apart.

Then she lurches forward, flings her arms around his neck, pulling him down with her.

"If this isn't a yes you are a cruel woman," Gale mutters against her lips.

"It's a yes, you idiot."

They spend every minute up until checkout using the king sized bed just the way Gale had wanted to the first night.

This time with no interruptions.


	22. Truth...or something like it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Mid October, Freshman Year

Gale has his eyes studiously on his textbook, his nub of a pencil scratching out notes on his left while he sips on the last drops of his cold coffee. He would ask for a refill, it isn't like pouring him another cup of plain black coffee would really hurt anyone, but his least favorite barista is working.

"No free refills, Dorothy," Birdy told him the first time he'd asked, even though Gale is one-hundred percent certain he'd seen her sneak Mellark an extra cup on more than one occasion. What is it about Mellark that makes everyone bend over backwards for him? He isn't thatnice.

Considering she's been glaring at him to leave for the past couple of hours, he doubts her mind is likely to have changed.

Sighing, Gale glances out the window, at the soggy campus. Cold drizzle is still falling, leaving thick trails of muddy water in the footpaths that criss-cross the campus and washing away the chalking from Homecoming just the week before.

He would leave, but the prospect of trudging through the rain, getting soaked and miserably cold, is less appealing than getting death glares from an obnoxiously superior co-ed.

Just as he's about to turn back to his book, continue to pretend to drink his coffee, he spots an annoyingly bright figure crossing the road with a much more muted looking individual at his side holding an umbrella over her head.

Gale would know that poncho anywhere. Katniss and Peeta 'God's gift to womankind' Mellark.

Deciding that pneumonia is more appealing than getting roped into a conversation with his best friend and her smugly perfect boyfriend, Gale starts gathering his things. He's just about gathered everything up, put his battered textbook and scratchy notes into his ratty backpack, when the bell above the door jingles.

"Gale!"

Too slow.

"I'm leaving," Gale tells them, grabbing his coat and attempting to put it on before they can stop him.

Too late, Gale realizes that his shitty bag has caught on the bottom of the chair. When he jerks it up a loud rip fills the air and his books, notes, a dozen stubby pencils and the remnants of a broken three-ring binder Gale had been too lazy to throw out, all spill onto the floor of the coffee shop.

He curses under his breath, crouches down and begins gathering up his things.

Mellark drops down too, starts picking up notes and gently setting them back on the table Gale had so hastily been evacuating while Katniss chases after several pencils rolling toward the door.

"Next time, you can just tell me you don't want to sit with me," Mellark jokes as he picks up the metal from the binder and hands it to Gale as they both stand.

"I wasn't-"

"Running away?" Mellark asks, his blond eyebrows arching. "Yes you were. I'm not stupid, despite what you may think."

Gale doesn't think Mellark is stupid. Annoying, smug, entitled, and frustratingly perfect, but not stupid.

"I'm glad you didn't get away though, I have an offer to make you."

Though he doubts he wants anything Mellark has to offer, seeing as his bag is nothing but a busted bit of canvas and he doesn't want to ruin his expensive as hell books or lose his notes, he doesn't feel he has much of a choice.

Katniss' eyes flicker to the table and back up to Gale and she makes the smallest gesture to the chair. He's either going to sit or she'll make him.

Picking up Gale's cup, Mellark gives is a shake, notes the near emptiness, and smiles. "Give me a minute."

He cheerfully lopes over to the counter, his poncho dripping all over the floor as he does. Someone is going to slip in his mess and Gale can only hope it's Birdy.

"What's this offer?" Gale finally asks. Not that it matters, but if he's going to have to hear it he'd rather get the fluffless version from her than Mellark's.

She tilts her head. "It's Peeta's idea."

Gale feels his face shift into a scowl. "That doesn't tell me much."

Katniss' lips twitch up. "Wasn't supposed to." Her eyes cut toward the counter where Mellark is working his smarm on Birdy for a millisecond before quickly jerking back to Gale. "Just…listen to him, okay?"

Just as Gale is about to tell her that he has no intention of listening to whatever half-baked fiasco her boyfriend is about to try and drag him into, Mellark returns, grinning stupidly at them.

"She's going to bring our coffee over and I asked her for a couple of plastic bags for you," he tells Gale as he starts to take off his cornea searing yellow poncho. He drapes it over the back of his chair before sitting down and crossing his hands in front of him patiently as he waits for Gale's full attention. "If Katniss hasn't told you already, I have some tickets to the 'Thirteen Stories of Terror' in the warehouse district on Thursday."

"Good for you," Gale mutters.

Mellark's mouth twitches up. "Good for you too. You're coming."

Gale lets his eyes finally drop away from the doorway to the back of the store where Birdy had vanished a few seconds before and fall onto Mellark. "Why would I go? Katniss can protect you."

Katniss snorts and Mellark cuts her a sharp look. She shrugs.

"Haha." He sits back. "You're going because Madge is going."

It takes considerable effort for Gale not to groan. Madge going was a very good reason for himnot to go. He makes an ass of himself whenever she's around and he'd rather go into the weekend not feeling like a jerk. He's already in a crappy mood waiting on word from the company he'd interviewed with for an internship to contact him. He really doesn't feel like moping over yet another bad night with Madge and the wonder couple hanging over him.

"No," Gale tells him flatly. He's sick and tired of the Mellark Matchmaking Services. He didn't sign up for it.

Before Mellark can respond, Birdy appears. She gently sets a cup of some froo-froo drink in front of Mellark, a couple of plain black ones for Gale and Katniss, and blankly hands a couple of large plastic bags to Gale. "Here."

He knows he should thank her, giving him anything without a fight is uncharacteristically nice, but he's certain it's for show. That and without a bag Gale would be stuck in her shop indefinitely, she wouldn't want that.

"Anything else, Peeta?" She asks, her voice so sickly sweet Gale feels his blood sugar rise.

Mellark smiles and surveys the table. "No, it looks like there's enough sugar here for Katniss."

Then, with a grin and a 'Yell if you need anything' she leaves.

As she prances off, Gale gives her back the most disgusted look he can muster.

"Why does everyone like you so damn much?" Gale turns his glare on Mellark.

He shrugs. "I'm charming."

That cannot be the answer. Gale's never met a less charming person in his life. If anyone was charming, it was Gale.

Rolling his eyes, Gale takes a sip of his coffee, even though he's half certain it's probably been spit in.

"Now," Mellark takes a drink, smiling to himself, "back to business."

"I'm not go-"

"You are."

"I'm no-"

"Are."

"No."

It's as bad as arguing with Rory. At least with his brother he can put him in a headlock until he stops being a shit. If he tried that with Mellark he'd end up in jail for attacking Prince not-so Charming.

"Either you come willingly or Katniss will make you," Mellark finally says, crossing his arms as though that's that.

As if to punctuate that she's the muscle of the pair, Katniss crosses her arms over her chest and narrows her eyes. "You're coming."

Mimicking her, Gale simply shakes his head.

Groaning, Mellark puts his elbows to the table and tugs at his hair, putting wet strands on ends.

"Damn it, Gale," he mutters to himself. He glares as he looks up. "Give Madge a chance. You only make a bad impression because you're expecting to." He sits back. "Do you know what you can expect from a trip to a haunted house? You get to shine, Gale! When Madge and I went to the haunted hayride back in high school she had her face buried in my chest ninety percent of the time. You'll get to be the hero, her big protector-"

"From a bunch of idiots in latex masks," Gale grumbles.

"Does it matter?" Mellark frowns, then, that irritatingly superior grin forms on his lips again. "You aren't afraid to go are you?"

That gets Gale's attention. He looks up from his sulking, watching the water drip from the bottom of Mellark's poncho, and glares. "No."

And he's offended at the implication.

"It's okay if you are," Katniss adds in, following Mellark's lead in goading Gale into doing what they want.

"I'm not afraid of some stupid 'haunted' house." Gale grits his teeth. "And you know it."

"Prove it," Katniss says, a look of triumph already glittering in her eyes.

They stare each other down, waiting for the other to blink. When Gale's eyes start to sting he groans.

"Fine, I'll go to the stupid thing," he finally grumbles, hating the feeling of defeat settling over him.

"Great!" Mellark downs the rest of girly drink and grins. He stands and grabs up his poncho, draping it over his arm before holding out his hand for Katniss. "See you at seven on Thursday!"

With that he bounces out the door, asking Katniss which way she wants to take to class. The rain, Gale notes dully, has finally stopped.

#######

Gale wears his nicest shirt and his worn leather jacket, his least holey jeans, manages to get all the mud off his boots, and wrestles his hair into decent shape as he heads to the apartment Mellark, Katniss, and Madge share, a sense of impending doom handing over his head.

It's a nice place, Gale suspects Madge's family made a considerable donation to the fund for them to rent there, but he doesn't know for sure. It makes his rental house look like a slum hole, but he has a yard. That counts for something he supposes.

When he pulls in and parks, gets out and critically eyes the paint job on his truck, he needs to sandblast it soon and start over, he turns and finds Mellark bouncing down the stairs like some kind of puppy with a bladder problem.

"I'm going over to Finnick and Annie's to get the tickets," he explains as he jogs a few doors down, to the last door on the lower level.

Gale shoves his hands in his pockets and follows after him.

Just as he catches up, the door opens and a dark haired woman dressed in full pirate garb smiles out at them. "Oh, Peeta, you came for the tickets?"

Mellark nods. "Yeah, nice costume, Annie."

She twirls for him, showing off her elaborate coat and gold bangles. When she stops she looks a little dizzy.

"Finnick and I are going to a costume party," she explains. "I'm a pirate, Reed is a pile of gold, and Finnick is-"

"Going to win an award!"

A man, Gale assumes it's Finnick Odair, the notoriously handsome morning radio personality for the local top forty station, step up to the door. He's wearing what looks to be a shimmery green bellbottoms, excessively flared at the bottom to mimic fins, and has dozens of little seashells woven into his hair.

He's an embarrassment to men everywhere. No wonder Mellark gets along with him so well.

Mellark, normally so sure footed, looks confused for a minute before he realizes what the family is.

"Pirate, gold, and a mermaid." He chuckles. "Yeah, might win an award."

"Finnick showing up with his shirt off alone will win the award," Annie adds, eyes softly floating over her husband's chest.

"He is an impressive specimen," Mellark nods in agreement. Gale tries not to groan.

"Tickets," Odair says, hand thrusting out, an envelope gripped in his fingers. "Thanks for taking them off my hands. Just be sure to come up with a useable review for me to put up on the website."

Mellark frowns. "What if I don't?"

"Who cares," Odair shrugs. He throws his arm around his wife's shoulder and presses a kiss into her hair. "Come wifey, to the party we go."

Gale fights the urge to gag.

As Gale and Mellark head down to the stairs, the girls appear, slowly making their way down the damp steps.

Katniss gives a faint smile of encouragement and a grimace of apology when she spots Gale and he gives her a noncommittal shrug in return. He hasn't determined what punishment he's going to inflict on her and her ass of a boyfriend and he wants to lull her into a sense of false security.

His justified annoyance starts to melt away when he spots Madge digging through her enormous purse. The purple strap of her bra is peaking out of the too large neck of her sweatshirt and there's a gap between the bottom hem of it and the top of her jeans.

Her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, a few little wisps escape and she pushes them behind her ears absently as she searches in vain for something.

"I don't understand," she tells Mellark, her nose wrinkles in frustration. "It was justhere yesterday."

Mellark frowns. "Maybe you left it in the library when it stopped raining."

She shakes her head. "No…"

"What?" Gale asks. It comes out a little harsher than he intends and Madge shrinks back, lips turned down.

"My umbrella."

"Don't worry," Mellark tells her as he gestures to his car, clearly letting them know to hurry up. "The weather girl said it isn't supposed to rain tonight."

The air shudders ominously, thunder rolling across the group, promising to send another wave of cold rain down on them despite what the meteorologist says. When Gale catches Mellark wagging his eyebrows at him he begins to suspect he might've had something to do with Madge's vanishing umbrella.

"Glad you wore your jacket," he whispers as Gale passes by.

Yeah, definitely had something to do with the umbrella.

Mother Nature apparently even liked the little bastard, judging by the sky. She's playing right into whatever nefarious plans he has.

When Gale opens the back door of Mellark's toy car he stifles another groan.

"Why do you have a car seat, Mellark?"

Staring at the car seat as though he'd forgotten about it entirely, Mellark turns to Gale. "I picked up Reed for Finnick and Annie. I guess I forgot to take the spare seat out."

Madge crawls in and begins fiddling with the straps fruitlessly. "How do you get it out?"

"Don't," Mellark tells her sharply. "Finnick and Annie just left and I'm not hauling that heavy thing up to our apartment. Just sit in the middle."

Leaving no room for argument, he gives Gale a little shove toward the seat and takes off around the car for the driver side.

He's a devious, manipulative bastard. Why does no one else see it?

Madge settles down in the center seat, scooting as close to the child seat as possible, though in Mellark's toy car there's hardly room to wiggle. Gale almost latches her hip as he buckles in, completely on accident.

The ride to the warehouse district is uneventful, but slow. Mellark had clearly taken driving lessons from an eighty year old woman. He's also gotten the playlist of an eight year old girl.

"Don't you have anything notfrom a Disney movie?" Gale asks after Ursula finishes her big number over the car's crappy speakers.

"I have a Broadway collection and a playlist for Reed that Annie made," Mellark offers.

Gale doesn't even respond to that.

By the time they get to the 'Thirteen Stories of Terror', Gale has Gaston's chorus stuck in his head. It doesn't make him feel any more manly though.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he trails behind the others as they make their way through the parking lot up to the ominous looking building.

There aren't too many kids wandering around, it being a Thursday and all, so Gale hopes the wait won't be too long.

With a smile, Mellark hands their tickets to the bored looking man at the door. Wordlessly, he gestures for them to go in.

What little light there is quickly vanishes once they step into the old building and the heavy doors bang shut behind them. Noises, clanks and bangs, grating noises and screams from guests already making their way through the warehouse, greet them. It smells stale, Gale notices Madge's nose wrinkling up as the stagnant air settles around them.

They join a group of ten or so, mostly college age kids like them, and a couple of junior highers. Gale stays at the back, trying to keep his eyes off Madge's still peaking bra strap, and keeps his hands stiffly in his pockets. He can't trust them.

"When is this stupid thing supposed to st-"

Before he can finish his irritable thought a man, a zombie actually, comes running at the group, forcing them through a small doorway with a wave of growls and groans and screams.

That's one way to start a 'haunted house' tour, Gale thinks as one of the screeching junior high boys narrowly avoids tripping when he dodges a hand that shoot out from the wall.

It isn't too shabby. Not as good as the one Thom's granddad puts on back in their hometown, but it isn't as cheesy as he'd expected.

He's so busy admiring the entrails in the butchery room he doesn't notice Madge stopping in front of him.

She grins up at him. She isn't the least bit scared.

As a man in a bloody smock wielding a prop butcher knife runs at them she squeals and dives sideways into Gale. He catches her and she bursts into giggles. "Sorry!"

For thirteen floors Gale watches as Madge snorts in amusement and outright laughs at the others in the group as they shriek in terror. She even bursts into a fit of giggles when Gale falls into her to escape an extra from 'The Walking Dead' on the twelfth floor that comes at him with a severed arm.

"Watch out, Gale!"

By the end of all thirteen stories, Gale's pretty sure he's been heartily misled by one Peeta Mellark.

"Did none of that scare you?" He finally asks as they finish and come down the exit ramp at the back of the building.

Madge grins, makes an unimpressed noise. "Me? I love scary movies! Peeta on the other hand…"

Ahead of them Mellark looks pale as a sheet, is gripping Katniss hand and still has his eyes clamped shut. Gale is pretty sure most of the high pitched squeals he heard came from the blond that had so badly tricked him into coming.

"When we went on the 'haunted hayride' in high school he had to put my jacket over his head for the last half of the ride," she adds.

That lying bastard.

A cool breeze hits them as they finally reach the exit.

The night has settled in while they'd been inside, making the area around the warehouse even more barren looking than it had when they'd arrived. Pale light from ancient security lamps illuminate the path back to the parking lot.

It's also pouring.

A heavy downpour has escaped the clouds. Rain is bouncing noisily off the metal roof, the walls, the cracked concrete and lampposts. It's coming down at such a rate that the water is rushing down the grates, overwhelming them, backing up onto the sidewalk.

Mellark hoists his jacket over his head, gives Gale a discrete wink, then pulls Katniss under it with him as they run out into the rain, leaving Gale and Madge standing under the awning at the exit.

Madge looks at her bag and groans. "I knew I should've went back upstairs and looked for my umbrella."

Gale squints down at her, then out at the sheet of rain Mellark and Katniss had vanished into. He stuffs his hands into his coat…

"Uh, Madge?" Gale takes his jacket off and stretches it out over his head just as Mellark did. "Come on. It'll keep you mostly dry."

She frowns, looks out at the rain then back at Gale. "You aren't going to run off on me when we get in the middle are you?"

He chuckles. "Well I wasn't…"

Her eyes narrow. "Don't you dare."

Still chuckling, Gale looks up at the canopy of his jacket. "Come on."

Hesitantly, Madge steps under the jacket.

They run through the rain, icy water soaking the bottoms of their pants all the way to the knees and completely drenching Madge's canvas shoes.

"I was wondering when you two'd show up," Mellark snickers when they fall through the door and into the backseat.

"You need to watch a new channel for weather," Madge grumbles, pulling her soggy shoes and socks off and dropping them with a thud onto the small space on the floor.

"You won't melt," he tells her, earning a dark look as a reply. He grins. "There's a blanket in the trunk."

Madge twists in her seat, giving Gale a face full of her backside, pulls the backseat down and yanks a fleece blanket out before swiveling back and covering her legs with it and pulling it up to her chin. She glances over and gives Gale an uncertain smile. "Do you want some?"

It takes him a second to process what she's asking, if he wants to share the blanket and not if he wants some of her. His brain clearly isn't working right and he feels like he's burning up. Maybe he already has pneumonia.

"No," he grunts, settling down in his seat and trying to cool his face. The running had made him break a sweat. He's out of shape.

As his eyes scan the windshield, watching the wipers try in vain to keep the road visible, Mellark catches his eyes in the rearview mirror. He grins and Gale quickly looks out his window. He isn't about to let the little bastard think he's done anything good.

In the space between the passenger seat and the window Gale sees Katniss' lips twitch up and it takes a considerable amount of effort to keep from crossing his arms and huffing. She can't possibly think her dope of a boyfriend has done anything other than probably get them all sick.

"Did you wet yourself, Mellark?" Gale finally asks.

That wipes the smiles off both people in the front seat.

Mellark turns a deep red and Katniss turns in her seat to shoot Gale the filthiest look she can muster, but it only serves to make him laugh.

"Oh, Peeta." Madge grins through chattering teeth. "Don't be embarrassed. You didn't have to put a coat over your head until after we got through. That's an improvement!"

Something about Madge needling Mellark makes the whole debacle worthwhile. Gale listens in awe as she describes the different levels of the warehouse, in vivid detail, and asks the increasingly pale Mellark which part was his favorite.

"Don't worry, Peeta," Katniss tries to console him, though Gale sees in the mirror she's barely managing to keep a straight face. "I'll protect you from the monsters under the bed."

"Haha," he mutters, trying and failing to sound annoyed.

As the ride continues and the rain hammers down, they all settle into a comfortable silence.

Gale starts to ask Madge if she's going to go to the party Saturday, but he stops short. One of the engineering students is throwing it so it'll probably be trashy and loud, he can't picture Madge in a place like that. Though the thought of her in a toga is highly appealing.

They pull into the parking lot and Mellark pulls up to the walkway, a small stretch of covered sidewalk, and lets the girls get out. "No reason for you ladies to get more wet."

Madge has to crawl over the top of Gale, so he pretends to be appropriately annoyed with her knee digging into his thigh and her still bare foot softly stepping on his foot, but not too much. The evening had turned out too well for him to put on much of a show.

Once they're both safely on their way up the sidewalk, Mellark pulls his car around close to Gale's truck. He locks the doors before Gale can get the door open.

"So, was that so bad?"

Gale grunts. He won't give him the satisfaction.

He wags a finger at Gale's reflection in the mirror. "You had fun, you big grump. I told you you'd get to shine."

"She likes scary movies and haunted houses," Gale finally sputters. "You lied to me!"

"I altered the truth a bit," Mellark waves his hand. "Madge did have her face in my chest during the hayride…because I grabbed her everytime something popped out."

"Altering the truth is lying," Gale snaps.

"I left out some context. The end result is the same. You got to save the day and keep Madge from getting soaked, plus," Mellark turns in his seat and settles Gale in a steady look, "you learned something new about Madge. I altered your perception and you didn't go in expecting what you got, which is a great time with a really cool girl who likes having the crap scared out of her."

Gale scowls at him.

"Plus, you got to hear me scream like a small child," Mellark adds. "That's got to be worth something to you."

Despite himself, a smirk slowly starts to form on Gale's lips. "Did you wet yourself?"

"I refuse to answer that," Mellark quickly answers. "Now, get out of my car and use what you have learned tonight to stop being such a mopey dick."

Gale chuckles. He can kind of see why people like the idiot. He's persistent and funny, though short of being tortured Gale won't admit that. "Don't count on it."

"Yeah," Mellark sighs. "I wasn't going to hold my breath."


	23. Traditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

November, Freshman Year

Gale knows he might be acting a bit ridiculous,he and Madge have been dating less than a month, but the idea of her spending Thanksgiving alone while he's off with his family doesn't set well with him.

Her dad is in the middle of a big business deal, somewhere in South America Gale thinks, and he can't just leave for a day. Even if Madge assures Gale he wants to.

"It's a really big project," she tells him. "It might fall apart if he leaves."

Then there's her mother. Tahiti. Who goes to Tahiti so close to Thanksgiving? Madge's mother and her louse of a stepdad, that's who.

"It isn't their fault," she'd explained. "You can't predict inclement weather. I don't want them trying to fly in during a storm anyway."

Gale is pretty sure there's an entire science devoted to predicting inclement weather, but he bites his tongue and keeps that comment to himself. It won't change the fact that her mother and Haymitch can't make it back in time for Thanksgiving.

"I'll be fine," she assures Gale. "It's just Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, and you're supposed to be with family. It's a holiday," he grumbles. She can't possibly really think that.

"If you want to get technical it's just a national-"

"Madge…" Gale silences her with a groan and presses his fingers to his eyes. He doesn't want her giving him the technical definition again. He's heard it enough. "It doesn't matter what it is or isn't. Everyone should be with their family tomorrow."

"Then go be with them," she says. As though it's that simple.

He turns and looks over his shoulder at his mother and Vick making the mashed potatoes on the stove and his dad explaining the turkey fryer to Rory, which is going to end in disaster, but no one is listening to Gale's warnings on the matter. Gale is here, with his family, about to have a big dinner then watch 'A Christmas Story' with Posy for the first time in the season before decorating the tree. It's tradition.

It should be enjoyable, but it won't be because the whole time he'll have Madge in the back of his head. She'll be sitting in her apartment, eating some of the last of Mellark's almost stale pumpkin bread and the leftover bits of chicken from her KFC bucket the night before. It's a grim image to have floating around in his mind.

Hanging up, arguing with her won't do him any good, Gale sighs and stuffs his phone back in his pocket.

"Did her mom and stepdad make it in alright?" His dad asks, though by his grimace he's already guessed things haven't gone as well as had been planned.

"Their flight got delayed," Gale mutters. "They won't be in."

His parents exchange a look, some sort of telepathic connection that people who've known each other for decades and seem to share thoughts kind of look, before looking to Gale.

"So what is she going to do?" His mother asks.

Gale shrugs. "Stay in. Watch tv and eat leftovers."

Vick looks appalled at the prospect.

"Why didn't you bring her out here?" Vick asks. "She could've had dinner with us, and I want to meet her."

"I still don't think she reallyexists," Rory says, smug smirk in place. "There can't be a girl actually masochistic enough to date Gale."

Gale is half sure Rory doesn't know what 'masochistic' means, he thinks that 'word of the day' calendar his parents got him for his last birthday has made him think he's some kind of linguistic genius, but he's too tired to argue with him.

"Katniss has met her, she's her friend. She's from in town," Posy says from her perch at the table, flipping through the Black Friday ads that had come with the paper, clearly missing the point of Rory's jab.

Gale drops into the chair across from Posy and absently flips through an ad, letting the sound of his family try to drone out the images of his girlfriend sitting at home eating crappy takeout while he's about to get a warm turkey and mashed potato dinner.

When his mother finishes with the potatoes she sends Vick and Posy outside with Rory and their dad to gather up some more firewood before dropping down beside Gale.

"Sweetie," she starts, her eyebrows knitted together and her mouth turned down, "I know you feel like you need to be here, but we'd all understand if you wanted to head back to the campus to be with Madge."

"Mom-"

"Gale," she cuts him off, taking his hands in her warm, weathered ones. "You're young. I know you feel like you need to be here, but you've been here since Sunday and she's up there all alone. Take her a plate and go back. We'll be okay without you this once."

His heart twists in his chest. "But the tree and-"

"Gale, the tree will get done. Your dad and I can manage I think," she says with a small smile.

"It's tradition though."

"Traditions aren't set in stone. Kids grown up and things have to change." She reaches out and pats his cheek, makes a face as she brushes her fingers over the stubble on it. "Next year you can bring Madge out and we can start a new tradition even."

It takes him a minute to process what she's said, and when he does a little grin forms on his lips.

"You think we'll be together next year?"

She nods. "You were always my determined little guy. Once you've set your mind on something it's hard to get you off it."

And he's had his heart set on Madge since he was a teenager, he isn't going to give her up anytime soon without a very good reason. Even if he hadn't told her, his mother knew. She was a mind reader sometimes.

#######

Gale's mother packs him a couple of plates, carefully putting them at the bottom of a paper sack before handing them to Gale.

She gives him a tight little hug. "I love you, honey."

"Love you to, mom."

Then he'd headed off, into the slight flurries of snow coming down, driving the few hours back to campus.

The steps up to Madge's apartment are slick with traces of show and some now almost frozen rain, and he nearly slips a couple of times going up, catching himself on the icy railing before he does. He straightens himself out, makes sure the food hasn't been destroyed in the bag, getting tossed around in his less than graceful assent, then slowly walks to her door.

She doesn't open immediately when he knocks, but just when he's getting miserably cold and ready to fish out the key Katniss had given him ages ago, the door flies open.

Her hair is grimy looking, like she hasn't washed it all day, and she's still in her pajamas. Automatically, she pulls the sleeve of her well worn pajama top over her hand and rubs her greasy face. "Gale!"

Reaching out, she yanks him in, bringing snow and cold, the crisp of the night, in with him.

"What are you doing here? You should be at home with your family," she chastises him as she brushes snow from his jacket.

"I didn't like the idea of you sitting up here alone," he grumbles, trying to unzip his coat. His fingers are numb though, and he keeps fumbling with it.

Madge swats away his hand and intervenes, quickly pulling the zipper down before helping him shrug his coat off. "I'm fine, Gale. This is hardly the first Thanksgiving I've spent alone."

She's too busy hanging his coat up to notice the look that crosses his face. He doesn't understand her family, probably never will, and part of him thinks that's for the best. He isn't sure he wants to fathom the minds of people that would leave their only child to fend for herself on a day meant for families.

"You shouldn't have come," she says again, her body drooping.

"It's fine," he promises her. "My family understands."

Posy may never talk to him again, but other than that, they understand.

Pulling his hat off, he shakes the snow onto the entryway floor, adding to his slushy mess of cold water and dirt at his feet.

They stand there, quietly contemplating his actions for a minute before Gale points to his bag that Madge had taken and plopped onto the counter. "I brought you dinner."

She stares at it, her expression unreadable.

When she doesn't say anything he thinks he's made a mistake. Maybe she wants to be alone. He doesn't understand that sentiment, but that doesn''t mean that isn't how she feels. Alone is natural to her, just like being with his family is natural to him.

Just as he's about to mumble his apology, tuck his tail between his legs and gather up his things to make the drive backto his parents house, screw his determination, it doesn't mean much if she doesn't want it, Madge flings her arms around him.

"Thank you."

Her voice is thick, wet and a bit garbled, but he understands her.

Even though his hands are cold and his boots are still on, dirty snow is melting onto the tiles of the entry under him, he wraps his arms around her and holds on.

"You didn't have to come back," she mumbles into his chest. "But I'm glad you did."

He knew it. She doesn't like being alone, at least not like this, abandoned.

His arms tighten around her and he lifts her a bit, crushing her sleepy warmth to him.

"Me too."

Even if he misses his family, it's worth it to make her feel better.

Plus the brownie points are nice.

When she finally lets go, pulls back and runs a hand through her messy hair, her cheeks go pink. "Oh god. Gale! I look like slob!"

But a very pretty slob, he thinks.

She starts to rush out, probably to shower and comb the knots out of her hair, but Gale catches her.

"I like it," he tells her. "It's what you look like when you wake up."

And Gale would very dearly love to see her waking up some morning. If she's this pretty after an entire day of lounging in her own filth he can only imagine what she'll look like after just sleeping.

"No, this is worse." She covers her face with her hands. "Much, much worse."

Gently, he tugs her hands down and leans in, presses an insistent little kiss to her lips until she melts into him. He wraps his arms around her waist again, anchoring her to him and inhaling her scent. She smells like strawberry shampoo, sleep, and buttered popcorn, and nothing has ever smelt better.

Finally, she pulls back, just a fraction, and grimaces. "Gale, I really need to take a shower. I stink. Please?"

He rubs his thumb over a small stretch of skin on her lower back that's just peeking out from under her shirt where he has it crumpled up under his hold. "Well, I'm cold. I think a hot shower would warm me up too."

She narrows her eyes. "Then use Peeta and Katniss'."

Damn. He almost thought that might work.

With a little pout, he sighs. "I'll wait for yours."

He does not want to have his bare feet in Katniss and Mellark's nasty shower. He doesn't want some incurable foot fungus from whatever disgusting things they may do in there.

Following her into her bedroom, after pulling off his still dripping boots, Gale flops onto her bed, rolls over and buries his face in her pillow.

The bed dips and he turns his face and sees she's settled down at the edge of the bed, her expression guarded.

She cuts him a look. "You know it isn't because I'm not tempted to, right?"

Gale rolls onto his back and frowns at her. "I was only teasing."

Sort of, mostly. Somewhat.

"I know you've been waiting ages and I know I'm being stupid about it, but-"

"Madge," he sits up and grabs her hand, pulls her to him, "waiting isn't a problem."

She's the only girl he would give up time with his family for, on Thanksgiving no less, the only girl he would let Posy glare at him over leaving the festivities early for. He'll wait until she's ready.

He's sure Mellark would have some psychological mumbo-jumbo to explain her away. Insecure attachment or abandonment issues or some fancy Latin-or is it Greek?-word to define to Gale just how Madge processes the world, but he really doesn't need to hear it. She is who she is and she's moving at her pace and he'll wait.

With a grateful little smile she gets up and heads into the bathroom while Gale waits, as patiently as he can, on her bed.

#######

Almost an hour later, Gale has their plates of turkey and potatoes, a little green bean casserole and a concoction with corn his mother had experimentally made, heated up and on the coffee table.

Madge is scrubbed and clean, smells like some kind of cinnamon scented body wash, which while Gale had been in the shower he'd seen was called 'something-something pumpkin', though he'd opted to use her almost empty 'fresh picked strawberry' wash instead.

She curls into his side, wrapped up in a hideous pink and fluffy blanket, sighing.

"So, what have you been doing all day?" He finally asks her after he's mixed his potatoes and gravy together, smashed his turkey into the mix and taking a large bite.

Madge shrugs. "Watching tv."

"Is that all you ever do?"

Her nose wrinkles. "No, but with Peeta and Katniss gone I've been catching up on shows I missed."

"Hmm," he grunts through a mouthful of green bean casserole. "What are you on?"

Picking up the remote she clicks on the next episode of some goofy looking show with people covered in grim. It isn't one of her awful soap operas, maybe it's that zombie show she and Mellark like, he can't really tell.

"What's it about?" He doesn't honestly care, he isn't much for television really, but she looks excited and if he can add to that he will.

Grinning, Madge starts babbling about space and delinquents and various jargon that he only understands enough of to know it isn't about zombies.

"Katy-Jo Lewes told me to watch it and now I can't stop." She makes a face, as though annoyed at her new addiction.

She clicks off the episode and goes to Peeta's Netflix account, finds the first episode for him.

"We'll watch from the beginning so you aren't confused."

He greatly doubts he'll be confused, it sounds pretty simple, but he doesn't argue. Most likely he'll just fall asleep with her nestled between his legs and her head on his chest and that's a good enough reason to watch whatever stupid thing she wants.

Half an hour later though, after finally sneaking his hand up her shirt enough to rest his palm flat against her stomach, he's glaring at the television.

"That guy dies soon, right?" He's an asshole. Definitely cannon fodder.

"Just be quiet and watch," Madge tells him, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"He better die," Gale mutters. He's trouble and shouldn't be leading anyone, especially kids. The girl on the other hand, she's a character he can get behind.

Madge shoots him a small look. "I figured you'd like him."

"Why?" Aside from his devotion to his sister, Gale finds little to like about Bellamy.

She shrugs. "He's a little like you."

"No he isn't."

Her mouth quirks up. "A little."

Gale huffs and starts to pull his hand out from her shirt, but she stops him with a little pout. She looks at him through her eyelashes. "Sorry. Birdy put it in my head. She said he was like a cuter less obnoxious version of you."

"And you agreed?" He asks, feeling a little indignant.

"No, not like that. I do see a bit of you in him though." She tilts her head back and presses a kiss to the underside of his chin. "Just the good part though."

"And I'm better looking," he adds.

She gives him a sharp nod. "Definitely."

Good. Because he is. The wicked witch needs her eyes checked.

They settle down again, comfortable and warm, watching the show until the early morning hours.

"Thanks for coming to stay with me," she whispers again when the last episode finishes and she rolls over, her face pressing into his chest. "It was nice not to be alone."

Gale runs his hands up and down her back, presses a kiss to her forehead as he grunts a 'no problem.'

It's worth the reproachful looks Posy is going to shoot him at Christmas and the silence on the phone he's going to get for the next month to have made Madge feel better.

"I still feel bad you missed out on time with your family."

He tightens his arms around her and inhales her hair, the clean smell of her shampoo, and sighs. "Don't."

Because he had spent time with them. Leaving early, no matter what Posy may think, was still seeing them. Plus, he'll make it up to them next year, when he brings Madge with him.

Besides, he thinks drowsily, Madge is his family now too, and if this is their new tradition, curling up on the couch and watching tv for hours on end then falling asleep in each other's arms with full bellies and warm bodies, he can live with that.


	24. Have yourself a merry little Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

December, Freshman Year

Gale can see the yellow white lights reflecting in Madge's eyes as they cross the festively decorated bridge that cut over the empty river in the middle of the park.

It's a little cheesy, going out to look at the Christmas lights, but if Peeta 'I'm such a good boyfriend I'm going to be on the cover of GQ's best boyfriend edition' Mellark had Madge's obnoxious coworkers oowing and awwing because he was 'just so thoughtful' and got tickets to 'The Nutcracker' for Katniss, Prim, and himself, then Gale wasn't going to be outdone.

Well, maybe he was, but only because he doesn't want to spend hours sitting in uncomfortable clothes watching people prance around in leotards. The only person he wants to see in skin tight clothes is Madge.

Plus the giant mouse thing has always weirded him out a little.

So instead of copying Mellark, who is a complete sap, Gale had figured out his own little holiday treat for Madge before she left to visit her dad and grandparents in Florida.

The suburb just south of the university always sets up a light show in their park. Gale had gone down there with a few of his friends in the years past under the guise of really just wanting to visit the barbeque joint down the road. None of them wanted to admit they enjoyed the walk through canopy of lights and the giant lighted Santa and his nine glowing reindeer or the free, but admittedly shitty, hot chocolate the little old ladies hand out to all the visitors. There was a strange sort of comfort in all of it, even if neither Gale nor his friends wanted to say as much.

A night of looking at Christmas lights, drinking weak hot chocolate in comfortable clothes, and then eating what Gale and Thresh had deemed the 'best ribs ever' is a way better Christmas gift than a giant spandex wearing mouse king. In Gale's mind anyway.

Besides, it's free, which his half-a-shoe-string budget is going to appreciate.

As much as he knows his money woes don't affect things with Madge, she doesn't care that he's never had anything. His upcoming internship will change all that, but he wishes he could give her nice things now. She deserves better, even if she's content with him instead.

Next year, he thinks, he'll make it up to her; he's going to get her something really nice. He'll have money saved up from his internship and some of his bills paid off, and he'll get her a necklace or a bracelet or something. Though, much as he hates to admit it, he may have to consult Mellark. He's bizarrely good at gift picking.

This year, anyway, they've decided not to exchange gifts, though Madge did give Gale a dozen iced cookies that he's ninety-nine percent sure Mellark helped her make. It wasn't quite cheating, but it was.

Madge seems content with the trip, his pathetic attempt at a grand gesture, for now, at least if her smile is anything to judge.

"Gale, this place is great!"

She laughs as snow starts to float from the sky, shimmering in the multicolored light.

It takes everything he has not to smirk.

Mellark might have charm enough to get him dirt-cheap tickets in a great spot to some stupid ballet, but Gale's charm apparently works on Mother Nature herself.

She wraps her hand in his, her fluffy mitten keeping her always freezing hands from his skin as she tugs him along the foot path through the lighted trees.

Her smile brightens when she spots the ice skating rink that's been set up in the center of the park. There are dozens of people on it, probably more than should be, because the refrigeration is clearly failing if the puddles of filthy water being slogged through are anything to go by.

"Want to skate?" He asks her, his lips brushing against her ear and causing her to shiver.

"I'd break my arm," she snorts. "But it looks like they're giving out more hot chocolate down there."

The snow is starting to accumulate in little piles at the side of the path, muck and dirty sloshing up on it as they make their way to the rink.

An old lady wearing what looks to be the winner of the ugly sweater contest and like a good gust of wind might carry her off, smiles at them as they reach her little cart.

"Two dear?" She asks Madge with her reedy voice.

Madge nods, teeth chattering slightly.

It takes her a minute, but the old woman shakily fills a couple of cheap styrofoam cups up, tops them with a few dry looking marshmallows, then hands the cups to Gale.

They settle onto a bench after Gale brushes the small bit of snow from it, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her securely against him and nuzzling his nose into her hair.

"So, what do you want Santa to bring you this year?" He hears her ask, her sweet smelling hair shifting as she tilts her head to look at him.

Leaning in, he presses a kiss to her mouth, tugging her bottom lip as he pulls back out. "Just you."

"I don't think he's in the business of shuttling people across state lines."

"Then he hasn't got anything for me, I guess," Gale tells her with a shrug. "I'll just have to be disappointed on Christmas morning."

He's only half joking. As much as he understands that she needs to go see her family, even if they're ridiculously far away, he wishes they could spend their first Christmas together together.

"I'll call you first thing that morning," she tries to assure him.

Instantly, he feels bad. It isn't her fault they live so far away and picking at something that's out of her control is a little cruel.

Dipping in again, he kisses her as his hands find their way under the layers of her coats, to the sliver of skin exposed between her jeans and sweater, making her gasp.

"Gale!" She's a wonderful shade of crimson, partly from the cold and partly from embarrassment. Her eyes dart around, probably expecting glares from the families all around them for Gale's poor self-control.

No one is even paying them any attention though. Gale is pretty sure he could be completely on top of her, at least one hand up her shirt, and no one would even notice. They're all too absorbed in the squealing and screaming their children are doing on the rink.

Madge shifts, straightening her coat and then her hat, shooting Gale a warning look as she does.

"You've-Gale, we're in public," she half whispers the admonishment.

"Let's go to the truck then."

The fact that he isn't going to see her until January hits him and spending anymore time in public seems like the opposite of a Merry Christmas.

She laughs as he hoists her up and begins dragging her back towards the exit to the park.

#######

Katniss and Mellark are already asleep when Gale and Madge get back from the lights, they'd skipped dinner completely. Kissing in the glow of the lights while Gale's truck warmed up was a much better use of their time.

The tree Mellark and Madge had put up the second the tree lot had opened up in front of the 24 hour shopping mega mart is on, the only light in the living room when Madge opens the door and she and Gale practically fall in as he kisses her neck.

"Gale," she giggles, trying desperately to keep her voice down and avoid waking the others. "We need to shut the door."

"There's mistletoe, Madge."

And there really is. It's one of Mellark's less annoying decoration choices. Much better than those creepy Santa's and that damned Elf from hell that keeps turning up in the bathroom.

Gale lets Madge go long enough for her to shed her coat, gloves, lumpy scarf, and hat (she acts like it's the arctic outside sometimes) before diving back in and wrapping his arms around her again.

"God I'm going to miss you." He'd waited years to tell her how he felt, a few weeks shouldn't be a hardship, but it is. Things are moving along so well right now, she's so at ease with him, the strangeness of everything has worn off and he doesn't want a setback.

Madge's hands slip from around his neck, her fingers toying with the collar of his shirt as she studies it carefully.

"I'm going to miss you, too."

Then she pops up on her toes, pressing a kiss to his lips.

"Will you stay here tonight?" She asks, her voice breathy against his skin. "I'm not going to see you for a while, and I...I want to see you when I wake up."

Since he wants to spend every last minute before she leaves together, Gale is completely on board with that request.

In one smooth move he picks her up, legs dangling over his arm, and starts for the couch, but Madge makes a small noise.

"Not the couch."

Gale freezes. Is he getting an upgrade?

Madge peaks up at him through her lashes, her cheeks growing darker even in the dim glow of the tree. "I don't want Peeta and Katniss bugging us in the morning."

Because everytime Gale's stayed over, it's been on the couch. At first by himself, then with Madge, but always the couch, and Mellark and Katniss always come out and wake them in the most annoyingly parental ways they can.

The only way to avoid that? The bed.

"Are you sure?"

He almost feels like he might be dreaming. Or have a concussion. Maybe they'd gone out on the ice after all and he'd fallen, hit his head, and now he's having a very mild fantasy.

Naw. He's never had mild fantasy in his life.

"Yeah." Madge nods. "I'm sure."

Gale studies her for a minute, searching for any hint that she might not be one hundred percent on board with this, but he doesn't see any.

With a little nod, he turns toward the hall and away from the glow of the tree and down to Madge's room.

She's put up her own decorations over her window, a strand of clear twinkle lights that are shining steadily through her shimmery curtains. Behind the shades Gale knows Madge has Christmas cards taped to the window, well wishes from friends at school, all her grandparents, and a postcard from her mother and Haymitch in the Bahamas. There's also silver and gold tinsel draped over her vanity mirror.

No mistletoe in sight though. Mellark is slacking.

Madge snorts as Gale drops her onto the bed before flopping down beside her.

Pushing herself up on her elbows, she leans over and kisses his cheek. "Get the bed pulled down."

She rolls away, grabbing her pajamas from the little hook by her bathroom door before ducking in to change.

Grunting, Gale gets up and pulls his shirt off, tossing it to the corner before unbuttoning his pants and slipping them off along with his socks.

He catches his reflection in the mirror and suddenly wishes he'd worn a nicer pair of boxers. These are a bit thin, but soft and comfortable. Nothing to be done about it now though, so he turns his back on the mirror and begins pulling the bed down.

Her sheets are Christmas themed, little elves with ugly hats and reindeer are scattered across the mattress and Gale rolls his eyes. After all the grief she'd given him over his 'Avengers' sheets, which were totally awesome and in no way childish, she'd apparently visited the children's section too.

When the bathroom door opens and he turns to tease her about it, she's already giving him a warning look.

"I know, I know, but they're so cute!"

Her hair is loose around her shoulders and she's wearing what must be her oldest pair of flannel pajamas, red and white and green and so soft looking Gale's hand itches to try to feel her through them.

Giving her a little half grin, he shakes his head and watches as she pads across the room in a pair of bright red socks and plops onto the bed. She wiggles around for a moment, shifting her pillows and adjusting the sheets before looking up at him. "Are you gonna get in, or just stand there all night?"

Hesitantly, he lifts the sheets and slides in.

Despite the childish look, the sheets are definitely expensive. Almost silky against his skin, and his stomach lurches.

The inequality in their relationship hits him again.

She's got sheets that probably cost more than his truck and he can't even afford a real Christmas gift for her. Despite her frequently telling him that it doesn't matter, to him it does, more than just a little.

Madge's hands sneak around him as she nuzzles into his chest with her cold nose and warm lips, giving him a second of distraction as he looks down at her.

Her hair is glowing in the warm, yellow-white light from her window and when she looks up, her eyes are shinning.

Dipping in, Gale begins kissing her, his hands taking handfuls of soft material and memorizing the way it moves against her skin as he rolls her onto her back.

When she's breathless, panting for air, Gale props himself up over her and gives her a small smile.

"Next year, you're gonna get the best present ever." Mellark won't be able to hold a candle to it.

Her hands cup his face, thumbs tracing over the already thick growth of stubble on his cheeks as she frowns.

"Gale, you drove back to see me when I was alone on Thanksgiving, you bring me breakfast and lunch because you know I'll eat something crappy if you don't...you look out for me. I don't need a present to know you care."

"But Mellark-"

"Peeta does things his way and you do them yours, it isn't a competition."

It feels like it is though.

She cranes up and kisses his jaw, her hands tangling in his hair as she pulls him back down. Once she's happy he isn't going to mope, she shifts in the bed.

"If it were," she whispers as Gale settles behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her back solidly to his chest and stomach, "you'd've won already."

#######

Gale wakes with his face buried in the top of Madge's head, blonde hair spiraling out wildly around him. Her nose is still cold, still pressed against his chest, and her arms are wrapped tightly around his middle, fingertips, warm for once, gently brushing against his waist. Hot breath ghosts over his skin rhythmically as she sleeps on

Squinting out into the cold room, Gale sees the yellow-white of her twinkle lights in a halo around the cold gray of the window before he hears a harsh wind blow outside. It's probably still snowing, maybe her flight will get delayed.

Madge must hear it too, even though she's still soundly sleeping, because she burrows deeper into the comforter and Gale's chest.

Chuckling, Gale tightens his arms around her and presses a kiss into her hair.

It isn't Christmas morning and when they finally roll out of bed Gale isn't going to get to keep what he wants most in the world with him and take her home to meet his family.

They only have now, the next few hours and the trip to the airport, and then it'll be weeks before he can see her again.

While it isn't perfect, he isn't afraid of being set back anymore, they're in a good place and even winter break isn't going to ruin that, just like not being able to give her a gift like she deserves isn't going to set them back.

With a sigh, he closes his eyes and tries to imagine waking up in a few years in their own bed, in their own place, with their own tree and presents to open. A little smile creeps onto his face.

Maybe he hadn't outdone Mellark, maybe he never would, but Madge doesn't seem to care, so why should he?

Her cold nose in his chest and amazing bed head are his Christmas gifts, and better than anything he got last year. Hopefully his warmth, and the little bit of drool he sure is on her pillow, really is enough for her.

If not, he'll make it up to her next year.


	25. Christmas Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> AN: Someone asked for Savanna and Glen, my oc children for Gale and Madge from another story that isn't up here yet, having a Christmas day. I put it in this au for some reason. Sorry.

Christmas, many years into the future

Gale wakes, bleary eyed and dull, last night's eggnog still running its course.

The sun isn't up yet, just a dim gray glow from the security light casting shadows over the area just inside the window, setting everything in hazy shadows.

Pushing himself up slightly on his elbow, Gale squints over Madge to the bedside table. Five fifty-nine am. He has one minute of peace left.

Letting his eyes drop shut again, he nuzzles into Madge's chest and lets his fingers trace along the patch of skin on her back, just above the waistband of her pajama pants.

"Don't get any ideas," she murmurs sleepily. Gale tilts his head to look at her and finds her eyes still closed, her lips turned up at the edges in a lazy smile. "Our wake-up call will be here any second now."

"Maybe they'll sleep in," he offers, though he knows it's an unlikely thing.

It is, unfortunately, one of the things Gale wishes their children hadn't inherited from him, his tendency to rise early and be obnoxiously punctual. They won't sleep in, today of all days.

Madge snorts and peaks one eye open. "If that's your Christmas wish, I think you're going to be sorely disappointed."

Just as he's about to tell her she needs to have a little faith in the magic of Christmas, miracles and whatnot, he hears the thundering of little bare feet down the hall, racing towards the bedroom.

It isn't a second later that the door cracks open and a pair of little giggles filter in before one of them yells something like a war cry, probably Savanna, and races across the room.

The bed jerks as both kids try to struggle onto it, which is a little too high for Savanna, before Gale rolls over and pulls her up beside Glen, who is already scrambling across the comforter.

"Dad, it's six," Glen tells him, pointing at the clock.

Savanna stands up and throws herself at Gale. "It's present time, daddy!"

Behind him, Madge has sat up and is watching the whole scene unfold with a grin. "Yeah, dad, it's present time."

Why don't they harass Madge like this?

"Because you're an easy mark," Madge had told him once. "They know if they make sad faces at you then you'll give in. You're worse than Haymitch."

While Gale doesn't think that he's nearly as big a pushover as Haymitch, who has been roped into more embarrassing situations by Savanna than Gale can count, he knows she has a bit of a point. He just doesn't want Glen or Savanna to ever think they aren't the most important thing in the world to him, his parents had always made sure he and his siblings knew and he wants that family tradition to carry on, even if that translates into his children having him wrapped around their tiny fingers.

Savanna starts jumping on the bed, chanting 'presents, presents, presents,' and Glen crawls over Gale to Madge, collapsing on her lap, legs sprawling out awkwardly beside him as he flings his arms around her neck. He gives her a kiss, then whispers something into her ear, making her smile and whisper an 'of course' back.

Finally, when Savanna topples over onto Gale again, he hoists her up and crawls out of bed.

"Alright, come on. Let's see if Santa came to see you."

Savanna's eyes widen. "He have'd to. I've been real good."

Gale laughs. "I'm sure he came then."

"Come on, sweetheart," Madge prompts Glen. "Let's follow daddy and then you and I will go make some French toast, okay?"

He nods enthusiastically and wraps his arms around her waist as they trail behind Gale and Savanna down the hall and to the entry to the living room.

Setting Savanna down, Gale gives her and Glen a little nod and they race into the living room.

Glen slides on his knees almost into the new bike 'Santa' had brought, a two wheeler-no training wheels, and carefully placed near the fireplace while Savanna trips over her princess nightdress and onto the floor in front of the castle Gale had spent nearly an hour putting together at midnight while trying to help Madge eat the half a dozen cookies, meticulously decorated by both kids, and drink down the two glasses of milk Savanna had insisted on.

"Look!" She holds up a doll, some princess Gale thinks, and waves it around her head with a grin. "I tolds you he'd come."

Gale follows after Madge, plopping down on the couch beside her and pulling her into his side.

"I better get my Christmas treat later," her whispers against her ear, and feels her shiver against him.

"Later," she murmurs back, her eyes staying on the kids.

For several minutes Glen helps Savanna pull presents from under the tree, reading the name off to her so that she can carry a couple to Gale and then to Madge before they dive into their own small piles.

They're probably a little spoiled, Gale thinks, as he watches them wildly throw colored paper and decorative bows here and there, but he's glad for it. He'd never gotten the chance to be blissfully unaware of money troubles as a child, and he's happy neither of his kids have had to experience a Christmas where Santa had to skip their house.

"Here, daddy," Savanna says as she plops Gale's stocking onto his lap before she starts pulling things from it for him, telling him what each is as she goes. "The Wise Men brought you an orange, and a candy cane, and some shaving cream…"

Once his stocking is empty she goes for her own, leaving Glen on the couch, nestled between Gale and Madge as they empty their stockings too.

"When will they leave me shaving cream in my stocking, dad?" Glen asks, picking up the can and rolling it between his hands.

Gale takes the can and glares at it. "Trust me, you don't want them to."

And he wishes whichever Wise Man keeps putting it in his would stop. It isn't going to make him shave more often.

Madge gives Gale an apologetic smile before she leans over and presses a kiss into Glen's hair. "Hopefully not for a long time."

A very long time, Gale thinks warily. If his own experience with hitting puberty, or, heaven help them all, Rory and Vick's, were anything to base it on, it wouldn't be pretty and Gale isn't exactly looking forward to discussing unpleasant things with his son.

When all the presents are open, Madge has a new pair of very warm looking boots, several wildly decorated socks (she has Glen and Savanna to thank for those), and a pendant with both the kids birthstones on it, while Gale has a new hunting knife, a book over edible wild plants, and a new tent.

"Katniss helped pick it out," Madge assures him when he gives her a questioning look, afraid some jerk at that giant outdoor and sports store she went to had taken her for a ride. "So it should be up to your standards."

"And-and you can take me wifth you on a long hunts, 'cause it's bigger enough for Glen and me," Savanna tells him as she and her new doll, another princess Gale thinks, inspect the box the tent came in.

Gale scoops her up and settles her in his lap. "Wanting to go and show Glen and me up?"

She shakes her head. "Jus' Uncle Worwy."

That's something Gale can definitely support.

"Mom, let's go make the French toast," Glen says, leaving his pile of toys, a new bow and a helmet for his bike, on the floor in front of the fireplace. "Then dad can go outside with me and we can practice on my bike."

"It's awfully cold, Glen," Madge says as he tugs her from her nest on the couch. "Don't you want to wait 'til it warms up a little?"

He makes a face. "Willow's already had a whole month to practice 'cause she got her bike for Christmas. I gotta start soon."

While Gale doubts that a morning of trying to stay upright in the snowy white cold is going to catch Glen up to a month of practice, before it had gotten a little too cold for playing on her bike, he's fully willing to support his son's efforts to catch up to Katniss and Mellark's kid. Even if she is a sweet kid.

"Well, it's going to have to be a short practice," Madge tells him. "We have to be at Grammy and Gampy's for lunch at noon."

And after a breakfast of syrup and powdered sugar covered French toast, both of them are undoubtedly going to need baths.

"And we need to call Papaw, then Nonna and Poppy Haymitch since we don't see them until tomorrow," she adds.

Glen sighs, long and dejected, but doesn't argue, just follows her into the kitchen to make Christmas breakfast.

Savanna squirms, rolls out of Gale's lap and scampers over to her pile, digging through it until she finds the child sized bow Gale and Glen had carefully picked out for her. She looks it over for a moment, then turns and runs back, sliding on her knees to a stop beside Gale.

"While Glen is widing his bike I'mma pac-tice wifth my bow. Okay, daddy?"

She holds the bow up and has her doll, a wide-eyed girl with wild tangles of red hair, pretend to fire off an arrow.

Wrapping an arm around her middle, Gale pulls her up and kisses the top of her messy dark head.

Tilting her head, Savanna gives him a serious look. "You love me, daddy?"

He grins. "I love you, princess."

She nods. "Good." Her eyes fall back to the bow, then she turns again. Twisting, kneeing him in the stomach, she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek. "I love you, too. Merry Christmas, daddy."

When she pulls back her nose wrinkles up. "You need-a shave."

She's certainly his mother's grandchild. Gale's certain his mother will be so proud that her constant chiding of his scruff is rubbing off on Savanna.

They sit there for several minutes, in the dim early morning light bleeding through the front windows and the golden glow of the tree lights with the smell of cinnamon and butter warming the air, and Savanna play-practicing with her doll and bow while Gale thumbs through his book of plants.

"Breakfast is ready," Glen finally announces from the opening between the kitchen and the living room.

Gale gets up and Savanna sets her bow down, clutching her doll to her chest as she reaches up, her eyes pleading and her lower lip jutted out.

Pick me up, daddy.

"You're getting too big for this," he grumbles half-heartedly as he lifts her and settles her on his hip and heads into the kitchen.

#######

When they get back from Gale's parents, where his mother gives both kids way too much pecan pie and sweet tea, they're both passed out.

Gale carries Glen, who's too long and lanky for Madge to carry anymore, no matter what she says, and she takes Savanna. Judging by how their daughter's legs dangle low on Madge's legs it won't be long before she's too big for her mother to carry too.

They struggle to get the door from the garage to the laundry room open, hands almost numb with cold by the time they fumble the keys out, then bang the last of the snow and dirt, bits of gravel, from Gale's parents' driveway before trudging through the kitchen and to the hall.

Gale gently sets Glen on his little bed, before he begins his battle to get him ready for bed.

He starts with his little boots, which Glen had tied himself, into a knot. Then the thick woolen cap Gale's mother had made him and bulky coat. Then the search for Glen's pajamas begins.

After a quick search of the room, Gale decides Madge must've taken them to wash; otherwise they're lost to the black hole of his son's room. He digs out a new pair, ones with Iron Man flying across the chest, and battles Glen's apparently boneless body into them.

"Come on, buddy, help me out here."

But Glen is exhausted from playing a rowdy game of football with Rory and Vick and then wrestling with his Gampy, he only makes a vague attempt to put his arms through the sleeve, which results in his head and shoulder poking out the neck, so Gale decides he should stop asking for help.

Once Glen is dressed, wrestled under his covers, and tucked in, Gale kisses his forehead.

"'Night, Glen."

"'Night, dad," Glen mumbles back.

Madge comes in, looking less worn out than Gale, which considering Savanna is still smaller is no surprise.

"Switch?"

Gale nods and crosses the floor, strewn with legos and dinosaurs, out the door and to Savanna's room across the hall.

She's got her red haired doll tucked under one arm and a hideous monstrosity under the other. Haymitch had given it to her for her first birthday, some weird mouse thing that Gale is sure the bastard only bought her to annoy him, but that Savanna has been attached to since the day it showed it's ugly face in the house. He supposes Savanna gets her love of obnoxious, ugly things from Madge. It's the only way he can explain her attachment to both that ugly mouse and Haymitch.

Savanna makes a little noise, then her eyes open a fraction and she smiles as Gale drops onto the side of her purple bedspread.

"Goodnight, princess."

Her smile widens. "'Nighty night, daddy."

Gale smiles back as he leans over and kisses her soft little cheek.

She holds her red headed doll up. "Now, Merida." Gale kisses the doll, dreading what he knows is next as she reaches beside her and grabs her mouse monster. "Now Haymish."

An accurate name if he ever heard one. It takes everything Gale has not to groan as he quickly gives the horrible thing a kiss just to appease his daughter.

Savanna pops up and throws her arms around Gale's neck. "Merry Christmas, daddy."

"Merry Christmas, 'Vanna. Go to sleep, baby."

With a nod she closes her eyes.

Chuckling, Gale gets up and finds Madge in the hall already halfway to their room. She stops when she hears him softly coming up behind her.

Wrapping his arms around her, Gale presses his nose into her neck and exhales. "So am I going to get to open my last gift?"

Madge snorts. "That is one weird euphemism, Gale."

"Whatever works," he mutters as he picks her up, carrying her into the room and tossing her onto the bed.

#######

When Gale wakes, hours later, Madge's cold nose it pressed into his chest and her arms are wrapped around his middle, holding him tight to her.

He toys with a strand of her hair, twirling it in his fingers before pressing his face into it and inhaling the last traces of cinnamon from breakfast and his mother's rolls mixed with the faint scent of her shampoo and a hint of sweat.

The first Christmas they'd spent together, Gale had only the hope that he would get another. Getting all of that he has, getting Glen and Savanna, getting to make up to Madge for his failure to give her a real Christmas that first year, is more than he'd expected.

"Merry Christmas, Madge," he whispers into her hair, his breath skipping through it.

She shifts against him, her body pressing more tightly against his.

"Merry Christmas, Gale," she mutters into his chest, her hot breath ghosting over his skin and causing him to shiver.

Gale kisses her hair and sighs.

His eyes get heavy again and he smiles to himself as he drifts back to sleep.


	26. For Auld Lang Syne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

New Year, Freshman Year

Madge flops down on the sand outside her grandparents' condo and sighs.

There are worse places to be stuck for New Years than Florida, but at the moment it doesn't seem that way.

She hadn't thought it would be this hard, but after talking to Gale, who sounded a bit sulky, it's getting that way. He's back on campus already, in the freezing cold and snow flurries, trying to patch together how he's going to get his reading material for the next semester, and Madge is sunning on the beach.

Her grandparents are great, they really are. Madge is their only grandchild, so she's the sole focus of all their seasonal activities.

Disney for a few days and then Universal, a trip to Miami with her grandmother to shop and then a day on the water with her dad and grandfather watching them fish, everything was planned out without question. That's just how it's always been.

"We're going to do a spa day," her grandmother told her one morning, waking her early for a walk on the beach with their yappy little dog before dragging Madge to the expensive resort for a day of pampering.

It wasn't bad, but it was a bit stifling.

"Would it be too much to ask just to have a day to relax?" She'd complained to her dad when she'd gotten back and collapsed into one of the loungers on the balcony that jutted out from the living room.

"Getting a manicure and a pedicure isn't relaxing?" He'd asked, tiny smile twitching up on his lips.

"Not with grandma micromanaging every little detail."

He nodded. "Sounds like her."

Madge had barely survived Christmas, getting drowned in expensive gifts and the attentions of one of her grandmother's oldest friend's grandson.

"Have you decided what you're going to major in?" Dylan asked. "Financing or business, like your dad?"

"No," Madge had told him, a little more curtly than she'd intended.

"Madge is going to be taking chemistry next semester, Dylan," her grandmother had said, trying to sound offhanded and trying to keep the two talking. "You took chemistry didn't you?"

"Passed with flying colors," Dylan answered as he smirked at Madge. "I'm pre-med."

"Isn't that nice, Madge? Maybe if you transfer…"

She was off babbling, planning out how Madge's life could go if she transferred and if she did just what her grandparents wanted her to and if she happened to get together with Dylan.

"They would be just the loveliest pair," Dylan's grandmother, a woman much more elderly than Madge's grandmother, said with a dreamy smile.

Madge tried not to gag. Dylan wasn't a bad guy, just annoying and a little stuck up.

"I have a boyfriend," Madge had quickly told them, almost shouting it at them, her face warming when she realized they were staring at her.

"Oh," Dylan's grandmother's smile hadn't faltered. "That's lovely child."

Madge's grandmother, however, just chuckled. "They only just started dating, Helen. And you know how flighty children are these days."

"Gale isn't flighty," Madge grumbled.

"He's not exactly from an outstanding family," her grandmother had added, ignoring Madge completely.

Muttering about needing to refill her glass of sherbet and pineapple juice, Madge had skulked off.

She loved her grandmother, she did, but she treated her like an accessory most of the time. Nothing Madge wanted really seemed to matter to her.

"Still trying to marry you off to Dylan the Dick?" Her grandfather had asked, tapping the end of his cigar into the flowerpot next to the table where he sat.

Nodding, Madge dropped down next to him, determined to use him as a human shield.

"Don't worry," he chuckled deeply. "I wouldn't let her sell you off for anything less than land in Palm Beach."

He was only joking, and the fact that he put so little stock in his wife's meddling made Madge a little happier.

"You'll like Gale, Gram-pa," Madge said, looking down at her phone and the last picture of Gale she'd taken before she'd left, him in Peeta's goofy Santa hat and elf ears. "He's really smart and he's pulled himself up pretty much all by himself and-"

He'd held up a hand.

"If you like him, that's all the recommendation he needs," he'd assured her.

She'd kept her head down after that, texting Gale and complaining about the fact that her Christmas tree was nothing more than a little potted palm covered in canned snow and glitter. His texts were the only bright points in her days sometimes.

'I feel like Kevin McAlister' She texted him after taking a picture of the little tree, which wasn't bad, just not really Christmas enough for her.

'Who's Kevin McAlister?'

Madge just rolled her eyes.

"He's probably just after your money, child," her grandmother had told her over breakfast the next morning. "You've got to be more careful about who you associate with. People will take advantage of that sweet streak you have."

"He isn't taking advantage of me, grandma," Madge growled, spearing her cantaloupe viciously. Gale couldn't possibly be with her because he likes her. That would be unfathomable.

"You're young and smitten. You can't see it." She'd given her a condescending smile and sipped her morning cocktail. "Someday you'll see."

It was useless to argue, even if she desperately wanted her grandmother to see Gale in a good light, so Madge had simply gotten up, mumbling about not being very hungry.

As New Years approaches, she wishes more and more that she could just go home. Texts and phone calls aren't enough and her grandmother's attempts to set her up with Dylan are getting tiring.

This is the first New Year's Eve she would actually have someone to kiss at midnight, and where is she going to be? On a friend of the family's houseboat, avoiding Dylan and her grandmother and their pointless efforts to pin her down in the life they've planned out.

Plus, Gale had mentioned that he didn't really have any plans. Katniss and Peeta were going out, some opening night thing for one of Peeta's friends in the arts, and Gale's other friends were going out to parties. He's going to ring in the new year all alone

"You weren't invited?" That hadn't seemed right. Gale rarely got snubbed.

"Turned 'em down," he answered. Madge could almost see him shrugging. "I'm just gonna go hand out at The Hob then head home."

He'd sounded so miserable, more than her, that she'd felt like a complete failure as a girlfriend.

She's considering going on another walk, just to avoid brunch with her grandmother, a car has just pulled up and Madge would bet money that it's Dylan and his poor grandmother, when someone steps between her and the morning sun, casting a shadow over her.

"Enjoying the view?" Her father asks, smiling as he holds out a hand to her.

Taking it, she lets him pull her to her feet.

"Did grandma send you out to get me? I'm not having cocktails with them right now." Or ever. If she wants a drinking buddy then she needs to call up Haymitch because Madge isn't interested.

He squints at her, little crow's feet pinching up at the corners of his eyes as a small smile forms on his lips. "Maybe after noon?"

Madge just scowls at that, causing him to chuckle deeply.

After a few seconds, listening to the soft roll of the water onto the beach and the birds calling in the distance, he holds out an envelope to her. "Here."

For a second Madge just stares at it, plain and white and uninteresting, before he gives it a little shake.

"Take it, Magdalene."

She shoots him a curious look and plucks it from his fingers, toys with the flap for a second-it isn't sealed-before opening it.

Inside is a print off, an itinerary for a flight leaving in a few hours for home.

"Dad, what is this?"

The wrinkles at the corners of his lips deepen as his smile widens. "A very late Christmas gift."

"You want me to leave?" She knows she hasn't exactly been great company, but that's mostly been around her grandmother. With her dad and grandfather she's enjoyed herself for the most part.

"Want? No. You want to though, don't you, Pearl?" He takes the paper from her hand and looks at it for a second before sighing. "Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love. Sometimes that sacrifice is time."

Madge opens her mouth to protest, he shouldn't have to spend New Year's Eve alone, but he shushes her.

"I've had almost all of your New Year's since you were a little baby," he tells her, patting her cheek. "Besides, if I could get out of an evening with the 'Golden Girls' mafia, I would. I'm rescuing you from drunken old ladies making backroom deals over their grandchildren's futures. Especially not when you apparently have a boy you're so smitten with back home that not even multiple rides on the Tower of Terror could get you to stop texting him."

For a long moment she just stares at him, processing what he's saying, before she throws her arms around his shoulders and crushes him in a hug.

He chuckles. "Well, I hope he's worth it at least. I'll be sorely disappointed if I meet him and he's not half as wonderful as you paint him."

"He is, dad."

They stay like that for a few minutes, the sun warming them and the ocean lulling them into a calm before Madge lets go.

"Thank you so much, daddy." She falls back on her heels, tears starting to well in her eyes. "I love you."

He presses a kiss to her forehead. "I love you too, Pearl."

#######

The snow starts coming down hard once Madge's flight lands.

She drags her suitcase away from baggage claim and waits at the revolving doors until she sees her ride.

As the little battered car pulls up and the dented miscolored door flies open, Madge runs out.

"Get in, loser!" Birdy yells over her radio, which sounds to be playing 'Flight of the Valkyries'.

Madge wretches the backdoor open and shoves her suitcase into the seat before falling into the passenger side door.

Birdy slams on the gas and cuts around a stopped van, yelling something out the window at them as she passes by.

Pulling out her phone, Madge looks at the name of the place Gale had told her he'd be spending his New Year's Eve.

Birdy grins. "Couldn't resist the allure of an arctic New Year, huh?"

Rubbing her hands together, Madge stares out the window at the falling snow, turning to black slush at the edges of the road and glittering in the headlights of the cars.

"It's a surprise," she tells her. "Gale doesn't know I'm coming in."

"I figured as much." Birdy frowns as she weaves in and out of traffic. "Decided to spend the Eve with your parasite of a boyfriend instead of your richer than Midas grandparents. Bad choice, Madgie."

"He isn't a parasite," Madge grumbles.

"You haven't watched him work his way through half the females on campus for the last two years," Birdy laughs. "He's smooth, but that doesn't mean he's changed."

"That doesn't mean he hasn't either."

"Don't be a romantic. Love isn't magic. Belle didn't make the Beast all better just by loving him hard enough."

"Belle didn't love the Beast until he changed," Madge snaps. "And Gale was never bad."

"Whoa." Birdy cuts her a look. "What's crawled up your ass?"

Madge glares at the front dash, mesmerizing the windshield wipers, eyes focused on the little patch of dust at the center of the window they can't reach.

"You sound like my grandmother," Madge finally mutters. "She hates Gale and she's never even met him."

"If only we could all have such good foresight."

Making an irritated noise, Madge turns sharply in her seat. "He came all the way back on Thanksgiving, in the snow, to keep me company, he took me out to look at Christmas lights, he held my hair when I was sick after eating that horrible sushi, and even before we started going out he took me for coffee and he helped me move into the apartment and-"

"Madge!" Birdy shouts, turning her radio almost completely off. "First of all, I'm only teasing you. Dorothy is…he's not a complete dick, I know that. If you say he's stopped his sleeping around, being a general petri dish of stds, then I believe you. Though I still strongly encourage you to take him to the county health department before you let him stick his little friend in your lady bits." Madge rolls her eyes at that. "But all that aside, you know him better than me. All those things he's done, those are worth more than your grandmother's complaints. She isn't dating him, you are. Don't let other people get under your skin so much."

If it were only that simple, but Madge's life has been spent worrying about what other people thought, taking their opinions into account. Stopping now seems like a futile attempt.

They cut across traffic, earning honks and flashed lights, onto the exit and into a dimmer part of the city.

When Birdy stops the car, outside a dingy looking bar that Madge is sure probably gets frequented by people who only deal in cash, she turns and gives Madge a small smile.

"Here's your New Year's resolution, stop worrying about other people's opinions. Your grandma, me, anyone. If Dorothy treats you right and you trust him, you don't need to justify it. If it makes you happy, don't sweat it."

Madge stares at her for a minute, uncertain she's heard what she thinks she's heard, before letting a little smile creep onto her face. "Thanks, Birdy."

"Don't mention it." She gives Madge a sharp look. "Really. Don't tell Lil'D I did him any favors."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Opening the door, Madge crawls out and grabs her luggage from the back.

"If you end up needing a ride, let me know," Birdy yells from inside the car. "I'm going to one of the swankier bars on campus, I'm working with the tipsy tow. Need to get some high class customers, but I'll come get you if you need it."

With that and a wave, she's gone, off into the swirling snow.

Gripping her luggage in her hand, Madge pulls it along and up to the grimy looking door, pushing it open and stepping in.

It's smoking, sickeningly so, and Madge has a fit of coughs within the first few steps. Her eyes burn and she immediately wishes she'd left her luggage in Birdy's trunk.

After a few minutes of hanging near the exit, avoiding eye contact with every drunken patron slurring and flirting, dancing unsteadily on the tiny dance floor, Madge spots Gale.

He's at the bar, shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his cheek leaned against his left hand as he runs the fingers of his free hand through the condensation his beer has apparently left on the bar.

Weaving through people, trying to avoid rolling over anyone's foot with her suitcase, Madge makes her way to him.

"Fancy seeing you here," she says as she leans against the bar, cringing. Could she have picked a stupider thing to say?

Gale glances at her, not really seeming to register she's standing there with his hazy eyes and sagging expression, then he sits up straighter.

His head turns so sharply Madge is sure his neck will be sore in the morning.

"Madge?"

She smiles weakly. "Surprise?"

He blinks, once, twice, then shakes his head before his face breaks open in a grin.

"Madge!"

His arms wrap around her and he crushes her against him, pulling her between his legs and burying his face in her hair.

The smell of stale beer and smoke is thick on him, nauseatingly so, but she doesn't care. This is where she wants to be, more than anything. No matter what her grandmother thinks or wants, what Birdy or anyone else thinks, this is what Madge wants.

Gale pulls back, his eyes glazed and his breath heavy and hot with the smell of beer.

"You came home," he says, cupping her face in his hands and frowning. "You flew in early."

She nods.

She already knows what he's thinking, that it was probably too expensive and that shouldn't have wasted her dad's money, even though it was her dad's choice to do that, but either way, she doesn't care. It made her happy, even if it probably was pretty wasteful, and she isn't going to sweat it.

Before he can get a word out, she grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls him to her, pressing her lips to his and tasting the cheap beer coating them.

"Little early for you two to be ringing in the New Year, isn't it?" The barkeeper asks, leering at Madge a little.

Without half a glance, Gale frowns at him before reaching in his pocket, pulling out his wallet, tossing some money on the counter and grabbing Madge's suitcase.

"Let's get out of here."

The air is sharper when they leave the stale warmth of the bar and trudge through the slush of the parking lot, to where Gale's truck is parked.

He fumbles with the keys for a minute, leaning heavily on Madge, before opening the door and gently pushing her suitcase over to the far side of the seat.

"Here," he says, holding the keys out to her. "Had a few."

As if she couldn't tell.

Madge takes them and frowns. "How were you planning on getting home?

Climbing in the truck, Gale pulls Madge in before digging in his pocket again and pulling out a card. "Tipsy tow." He frowns at the brightly colored card. "Mellark gave it to me. Guess he knew I'd be…a little down."

And since Peeta and Katniss weren't going to be in any shape to drive, it was the next best thing.

Staring at the card, Madge smiles. She hadn't told Birdy where to take her when she picked her up at the airport.

#######

They get back to Gale's house, which was closer to Gale's chosen bar, about a quarter 'til midnight.

The drive would've been quicker, but Gale's wandering hands had made Madge's already shaky driving that much harder.

"Gale, you're distracting me," she'd told him.

"Then pull over," he grumbled. "I haven't seen you since before Christmas."

She almost points out that it had only been a few weeks, but doubts it would really matter to him. He's tipsy and eager and not in the mood to be reasonable.

"Let's get inside," she says as she makes sure the truck is securely parked before winding her arm under Gale's and around his middle, giving him a little extra support.

He fishes out his keys and lets Madge open the door as he continues to nuzzle his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply every few seconds.

Inside is sparse, a threadbare couch and an ancient television on a questionable looking stand, a couple of lawn chairs and a fold-up table and pinned on the fridge, several pictures Posy had sent over the years.

Gale starts kissing her again, the stubble on his face is scratchier than usual, and Madge gets the sneaking suspicion he hasn't shaved in a few days.

"I can't believe you came home early," he mumbles against her neck, his fingers working their way up under her shirt and grazing against the skin of her lower back.

Madge shrugs, runs her hands through his hair and lets her lips trace along his jaw, catch on the overgrowth of his whiskers. "I didn't want you to be alone on New Years, Gale. You came back for me on Thanksgiving."

"I didn't have to get a plane ticket to do that though," he points out, his breath hot on her neck, ghosting down the collar of her shirt.

"Idea is the same."

He makes a grumbling noise, as though he doesn't think so, but doesn't say anything, just keeps kissing and nipping at her skin.

While he's pushing her coat off, letting it fall to the ground and into the bit of slush that they'd trailed in with their shoes, Madge sees the electric glow of the tacky neon clock on his wall. Almost midnight.

"Gale," she whispers into his ear. "Gale, it's almost midnight."

He hesitates for a minute, his lips lingering on her collarbone, before he straightens up and presses his nose into her cheek. "I'm gonna miss this year."

Madge nods. She is too.

"Or at least the last few months of it," he quickly adds.

"We're gonna get a whole year this time," Madge reminds him.

"Right," he murmurs, looking down at his watch.

Eyes focused on the neon red of the minute hand and the electric purple of the second hand, Madge waits until the hand is only a second away before pulling him back down to her, getting her first New Year's Eve kiss.

Fireworks start shooting off in the distance, someone fires off a gun, then another, then a car alarm sounds and several dogs start howling.

"Happy New Year, Gale," Madge finally says, when she pulls back, air becoming a necessity.

Gale dips back in, lips against hers, "Happy New Year, Madge."

#######

When Madge wakes up the next morning, Gale is still asleep, snoring softly with his cheek pressed into chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her.

They're in his bed, still in their stale smoke and beer stinking clothes, covered in a worn out looking quilt that Madge thinks Gale must've grabbed from his couch sometime after Madge fell asleep.

It's still snowing outside. She can see the bright white of the sun filtering through the thin curtains of his window and the shades he hadn't bothered to close the night before, to the lazy first day of a new year outside. Fat snowflakes are drifting down, just barely discernible, but she can still make them out and can see the frost forming on the panes of the window.

The air around them is cool and crisp, fresh smelling, encouraging them to stay nestled in Gale's warm bed for as long as possible. When Gale mumbles something, nuzzles deeper into Madge's chest and lets out a long, warm breath against her skin, she decides to oblige.

This is where she wants to be and who she wants to be with, and no one's opinion is going to change that.

Pressing a kiss into Gale's smoky hair, she sighs.

"Happy New Year."


	27. Form and function

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

Late Sept, Soph Year

Clove groans and flops over on her manual of human anatomy.

Madge grimaces, there's probably trace bits of human fat, and God only knows what else, smeared on the pages, but she doubts Clove cares.

They've been in the library studying for the better part of two days, preparing for their first test. Madge is pretty sure she hasn't retained a single drop of information.

Still, she isn't going to stop now.

"Come on, Clove," Madge prods her in the top of her head with a highlighter. "A little longer then we can go."

Maybe.

Looking up, Clove's face pinches and she huffs before putting her face back in the book. "I hate the human body."

At the moment, a Madge does too, but she isn't going to tank a test over a little exhaustion.

Finally, Clove looks up, takes a long breath, then snaps her book closed. "I'm out, Madge. I'm done for the night."

Before Madge's studying fried brain can process what she's saying, Clove starts stuffing her books and notes in her bag.

"I need sleep and food and a nice long bath." She gives Madge a flat look. "If I read about 'insertion' and 'origin' again tonight I might just carve someone up and look for them on their muscles."

Madge just nods, uncertain what to say to that. Clove can be a bit dramatic, and a shade frightening at times.

"See you tomorrow then?" She finally asks.

Clove heaves her backpack, now heavy with her study material again, onto her back and nods before vanishing into the stacks and to the exit.

Looking at her watch, Madge sighs. It's midnight and she's exhausted and now her study buddy has abandoned her. She might as well give up.

Rubbing her eyes, she groans and drops them to her book, the diagram of a dissected back and all, and she knows she can't give up. Not without a very good reason.

Minutes tick by, and she suddenly has the distinct feeling she's being watched. A chill runs up her back, and just as she's about to turn and make sure one of the creepy boys that hangs out down in the computer lab hasn't ventured from behind his locked doors, someone blows on her neck.

Jumping up, she grabs her book and prepares to use it to bludgeon whoever it is. That should give her enough time to grab her pepper spray or kick them in a sensitive area. She freezes, though, when she sees who it is.

"Gale!" She half shouts, part of her brain still functioning enough to remember she's in a library, a sanctuary for quiet.

He's laughing, trying to muffle deep chuckles with one hand as he holds up the other in surrender.

She thwaps him, a little hard, with her book anyway. That wasn't funny. He shaved a good ten years off her life.

"What are you doing here?" She finally asks, a little harshly since her nerves are still frazzled from thinking she was about to have to beat a man to death.

Laughter stuttering out, Gale smiles.

"I didn't want you and Clove walking home by yourself," he explains.

"Clove already left," Madge tells him as she drops back into her seat, her eyes still on him.

Madge would've left with her, safety in numbers and all, but studying trumps personal safety, and no one with half a brain would try anything against Clove. Her dad is apparently an ex-Marine or Navy Seal or Soldier of Fortune, Madge really isn't sure which, and he'd taught Clove all kinds of moves that would make grown men wet themselves.

"I can kill a man with a straw," she'd told Madge once.

While Madge isn't sure if that's something that's likely to ever come up, she doesn't care. She's never pissing Clove off.

"I know. I caught her trying to leave," Gale grumbles. "I told her to wait downstairs while I came up to drag you out."

Madge almost laughs. Clove probably only agreed to wait because she has a bit of a crush on Gale.

"He's so hot," she'd muttered the first time she'd seen Gale picking Madge up from class. "Does he have a brother?"

Grimacing, Madge had decided it was in everyone's best interest for Clove not to know about Rory or Vick. Clove is younger than Madge, but Rory is only in high school. Not that his age would stop him from flirting, if his interactions with Madge are any indication.

Gale grins, reaching down, a lightening quick hand under her sweater, pinching her side. "So come on."

Before Madge can tell him to just get Clove home and let Madge keep studying, she has to do well on this test, he snaps her book closed and slinks into the narrow space behind her, between the seatback and Madge's slumped shoulders.

His arms snake around her middle, pulling her firmly against him, permeating her chilled body with his warmth and making the ache that had been building up for a few hours now ease up. He brushes her hair off her neck, his calloused finger grazing the suddenly hyper-aware skin on her shoulder, before he starts gently nipping at her neck, teeth scraping along the curve.

"We can go back to my place and I can help you with your studying," he whispers, hot breath ghosting down the front of her coffee stained sweater.

Snorting, Madge cuts her eyes to him.

"Somehow I doubt you're motivated by pure altruism." She catches one of his wandering hands, which has traveled over her stomach, down to her leg, her knee, then up the inside of her thigh, pushing her skirt dangerously high. "Besides, I'm pretty sure the anatomy you want to help me with isn't on the syllabus until the end of the semester."

"I'm just trying to get you ahead," he murmurs against her ear, his nose bumping it before he presses a quick kiss behind it.

"Thanks for your dedication to my education," Madge laughs softly, pressing Gale's other hand, warm and rough and eager, which has found its way under her shirt, to the chilled skin on her stomach.

"You're welcome."

The hand on her thigh squeezes, causing Madge to suck in a sharp breath. He's trying to wind her up, make it impossible for her to focus on her studying, and doing a damn good job of it.

Finally, when it's apparent that her mind is too preoccupied with Gale's body pressed against hers to even attempt more studying, Madge slumps into him fully.

"Fine, let's go home."

"Don't sound so excited," he grumbles as he starts to pull his hands back.

Rolling her eyes, Madge tilts her head back and kisses the scruffy underside of his chin.

"Oh, don't pout," she tells him which only causes him to turn his head and glare at one of the dusty shelves cocooning them in the corner. Finally, she inches his hand up her leg a fraction. "I'll make it up to you."

That certainly brightens his mood.

"There's a girls' bathroom along the north wall with a couch," he quickly informs her.

Deciding she doesn't want to know why he knows that, or how many times he's been in that particular bathroom, the less knowledge she has of Gale's sexual history the better, Madge just sighs.

"Clove is waiting, remember?"

His expression sours. "Oh, yeah."

Grunting, Gale stands, legs straddling the seat behind Madge, before climbing out and straightening his pants.

Swiftly gathering her books, Gale helps, picking up her atlas of anatomy, complete with actual cadaver photos.

"I don't understand how you can cut up a person, but have a fit if there's blood stuck in the plastic wrap on the meat at the grocery store."

"Well, for one, I'm wearing gloves during lab," Madge explains, zipping her bag. "And two, the grocery store thing is gross. It can get on your hands and then you spread it around to everything you touch."

At least in lab all the nastiness is contained.

The concept seems a little lost on Gale. Meat is meat, apparently, at least to him. Madge doing something as clinical as dissecting a cadaver should easily translate into helping with cooking, in his mind anyway.

It isn't going to make sense to him, no matter how she explains it, and to be honest she knows it seems a little strange, so she just pops up on her toes and presses a quick kiss to his lips. That should get his mind off her raw meat avoidance.

"Let's go."

#######

Clove looks a little irritable when Madge comes down the steps, but every trace of annoyance vanishes when Gale comes trailing along, Madge's backpack thrown over one shoulder.

"Ready?" He asks.

She nods, grinning mutely.

They exit, into the cool end of summer air, just as the clock tower chimes one am.

"I parked by the Union," he tells them, leading them down the dark path along the side of the library, to the courtyard, then the creepy, poorly lit stairwell up to the second story of the parking garage.

Strange yellow lights that don't provide enough illumination, cast sickly shadows over everything, and Madge latches onto Gale's hand instinctively and urges Clove to walk a little faster.

"They should put some of our tuition toward making this place a little less of a creep sanctuary," Clove complains with a huff, shifting her backpack and glaring around, as if preparing to pull out a straw and take down anyone that may or may not be lurking in the murky shadows.

"No argument here," Gale mutters. "More parking at all would be nice."

The atrocious parking situation on campus aside, Madge would appreciate them not making more parking garages. She's seen one too many Datelines that started in one and ended years later in a field.

Gale opens the passenger side door and gestures for Clove to get in.

Even in the weird yellow of the security lights, Madge can see a faint blush start to glow on Clove's cheeks as she tosses her bag to the floorboard and jumps in after it.

Madge scoots into the middle seat, which is lumpy for some reason, and shifts the buckle so that it isn't cutting into her back when she fastens it, a trick Vick had taught her over the summer. Years of being stuck in the center seat of trucks with his family had given him unfortunate knowledge of how to avoid the pitfalls of the middle seatbelt, and he'd been all too eager to share that information with Madge.

Gale's arm drapes over Madge's shoulder, his fingers absently toying with the cord to the hood of her sweater.

"Same place still, Clove?" He asks after he backs out.

"Yeah," Clove answers, smiling, clearly happy Gale remembers where she lives.

It's only a few blocks from campus, in a huge old house that someone converted into apartments years ago. Clove lives on the third floor, up a set of stairs that look like a good gust could take down. They're narrow and patched, missing railing in places. Even from the gravel parking lot, which used to be the backyard, Madge can see nails, sticking up at odd angles, glinting in the white glow of the security light. How the house hasn't been condemned for that infraction alone, Madge isn't sure, but she hopes Clove looks for a better place to live soon.

"See you tomorrow," Madge tells her as she slides out.

"Yeah." Clove hoists her bag onto her shoulder. "Thanks for the ride, Gale."

He gives her a little nod of acknowledgment, and before her blush can reappear, Clove slams the door and races up the steps.

Once she's safely inside, Gale shifts his truck into drive and pulls back onto the narrow street in front of Clove's apartment, muttering about 'shitty parking' as he weaves between the cars packed along the crumbling curbs.

Instead of pulling out and heading towards Madge's apartment, Gale turns the opposite direction.

"I guess I'm staying with you tonight, huh?" Madge laughs.

"It's past one in the morning. Do you really want me driving all the way to your apartment when mine is right across the tracks?" He asks, barely managing to keep a straight face.

Madge rolls her eyes and snorts. "'Cause five more minutes is just too far."

"Ten minutes," he corrects. "There and back. Plus, I believe I'm owed a reward of some sort for the lackluster response my coming to pick you up got."

Nodding, Madge grins. "I suppose you are."

#######

Madge watches Gale's bedroom fan as it makes lazy cycles, mimicking the ones Gale is tracing on her hip with his thumb.

"Am I forgiven?" She asks, twirling a strand of his dark hair around her finger.

"My feelings are still a little hurt," he tells her, his voice slightly muffled against her chest. He rubs his nose against the side of her breast, tickling her, as he shifts to sit up. Propping himself on his arms, he wiggles up, kissing along her neck. "Plus, I helped you study."

Madge snorts into his shoulder.

"Yeah, study." She rolls her eyes. "Very educational."

The form and function of human genitalia isn't likely to get as in depth as Gale's lesson had been, and she's pretty sure he isn't going to volunteer to help her with the internal structures. At least not his internal structures.

His kisses get longer, lazier, and Madge can tell he's about to nod off when he sighs, settling back down, his cheek pressing to the space between her breasts.

"Maybe you and Clove can just come over here to study from now on," he says through a yawn. "It isn't safe for the two of you to walk home so late, especially if you aren't even going to stay together."

He's only saying it because he wants to see her more. Plus, if it gets too late he can drive Clove home and make sad faces until Madge just agrees to stay the night. He's devious like that.

Tugging gently at his hair, Madge smiles. "Or we could just trade off studying at each other's places."

The only reason they haven't is because Madge is too scared to hike up the deadly stairs to Clove's apartment more than absolutely necessary.

Gale's stubble scrubs against Madge's chest as he angles his face up, scowling at her. "Please tell me you're joking. That place is a death trap."

Grinning, Madge kisses his forehead. "Maybe."

He squints at her a few minutes more, then settles back down, his breathing slowing.

"Clove would say yes," he says sleepily. "She'd agree in a heartbeat."

"Only because she thinks you've got a cute butt," Madge laughs.

"I do," he tells her, tilting his face back up and glaring. "A very cute butt."

"The cutest," Madge assures him.

Gale nods his agreement firmly before smiling. "Maybe I could invite Rory up one weekend and have Clove over for a cookout. Introduce them. I know he's not as handsome as me, and his butt is second rate compared to mine, but I'm a one of a kind. Lightening doesn't strike twice."

Madge stifles a snort.

His grin widens. "And even if she doesn't want the poor man's Gale, if she can kill a man with a straw then maybe she can beat some sense into a boy with a spork or something."

"No, Gale." His brother's safety can't be guaranteed and she doesn't want his parents blaming Madge for bringing Clove into their lives.

"But-"

"No."

Sighing again, Gale lets his cheek settle against her chest again. "Fine."

As he drifts off, Madge hears him mutter, 'and after all the studying I helped with'.

Curling her fingers in his dark hair, Madge shakes her head. She's going to fail her first anatomy test, but maybe she'll at least get some external structures right on her last one. On the male genitalia, anyway.


	28. Runner's High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

May, Junior Year

Gale glares down at the jagged tulle, bubble gum and pale pink mixed together in a sickly sweet combo.

Involuntarily, his mind supplies the words 'blush and bashful', and he almost laughs before he realizes what he's thinking.

Damn Mellark and his girly movies.

Why he agreed to this he doesn't know.

Looking around, he sees a hundred women, all dressed like him. Horribly frilly skirts, bright tops, and fairy wings. At least Gale had talked Madge out of making him wear the damn wings.

"They'll totally mess up my time," he'd grumbled when she first brought them up. If he was going to run in some goofy race he was at least going to make good time. And beat Katniss, of course.

"Gale, it's a Disney race. It's meant to be fun. Don't turn it into one of you and Katniss' weird competitions."

So he'd agreed to the skirt, which Posy had called and insisted be as pink as humanly possible, and he'd even let Mellark talk him into getting one of their 'team' shirts. Mercifully black tank tops with the work 'believe' written across the front in Mellark's frilly scroll, in glitter glue no less.

"This is hideous," Gale had muttered.

"It's adorable," Mellark had countered. "It helps us look more like a cohesive group."

While the last thing Gale ever wants is to look like he even belongs to the same species as Mellark, Madge and Posy had approved the look.

Is so cut e, Posy had texted when she'd gotten the picture, right before the group had left for Disneyland.

His brothers had been less enthusiastic.

I know we tease you a lot, Rory had texted. But dude, what are you doing? A skirt?

Please tell me you're wearing pants under that thing, Vick added. And shaving.

Gale had quickly threatened to skin both of them if they started in on it. He didn't want to hear them saying all the things he'd said to himself already.

This was lame, dorky, and he's whipped.

Which he might be, probably is, but he didn't want to hear it.

Madge had, thankfully, jumped to his defense.

"Leave him alone. He looks great in it."

Apparently, hearing his hot girlfriend chastising them, or texting them irritably in this case, was all it took to shut the pair of nuances up. He stored that information away for later use.

"Gale, let me fix your tutu," Madge says, delicate hands tugging at the mess of tangled tulle hanging from his hips.

She's shivering, which is no shock. It's too damn cold and too damn early to be out. Isn't Southern California supposed to be sunny and warm? Stereotypically perfect weather? So far, it hasn't lived up to that particular hype, which is sickeningly disappointing. He'd wanted to go to the beach, get Madge into a swimsuit, even if she wouldn't stick so much as a toe in the ocean.

So far though, despite the clear skies, sixty degree weather has kept his girlfriend woefully overdressed.

Once she's finished straightening the tulle, Gale wraps her in his arms, letting her leech warmth from him.

She tucks her icy hands up, pinning them between them, and buries her face in his chest.

"How are you always so warm?" He hears her muffled voice ask.

He grunts a 'dunno' and nuzzles his nose in her hair. It smells like her strawberry shampoo.

He almost slips and says 'the cold doesn't bother me', but catches himself. The last thing he needs is for Mellark to hear him say that. Katniss had made that fatal mistake right before they got on the plane and had been treated to three hours of 'Let it go' and not-so-thinly veiled 'Frozen' references. It had been threatening to make him sleep on the couch that had finally gotten him to stop, though Gale is sure he's heard him call her 'Elsa' more than a few times under his breath.

The truth is though, the cold doesn't bother him, or Katniss. Years of early mornings in the freezing dew had given them a kind of immunity to it. Madge and Mellark just didn't have as tough skin as them.

If that meant he got to practically grope her in public, though, Gale didn't mind her softness. He'd be twice as thick skinned if it meant he got more moments like this.

Katniss appears, Mellark at her side, trying to help her unbunch her skirt.

"These things are impossible to pee in," she complains. "This stupid tulle goes everywhere."

Madge grimaces, and Gale can only imagine what's running through her mind. Probably that Katniss is going to need a healthy heaping handful of hand sanitizer to deal with whatever disgusting germs she's carried with her from the port-a-potty on her tutu, and is smearing on her hands as she straightens it out.

Trying not to laugh, Gale tightens his arms around Madge and looks around.

"Looks like we're moving to the corrals," he tells the others, hoisting Madge a few inches from the ground and waddling towards the rest of the crowd.

They're lined up, crushed together really, on the street between the park and the enormous resort hotels.

Madge had offered to get her dad or Haymitch to pay for them a room in one, but Gale's less than enthused response had apparently squashed that idea. He'd had enough of Haymitch's hospitality after Vegas, and while he liked Daniel well enough, he didn't want to take advantage of his good nature.

Luckily, Madge's aunt lived nearby, on the beach, of course, and she'd offered her condo up.

"I'll be in Vancouver for a conference anyway," she'd told Madge. "You can watch Cookie for me. Win-win."

Gale had expected a small, yappy dog, and a headache. What he found was a 150 pound gray beast of a Great Dane.

Cookie, or Princess Jezabelle Isadora Cookie, wasn't bad as far as dogs go.

She didn't bark, didn't beg, and she didn't smell. She also seemed to have taken a deep personal dislike to Katniss, which amused Gale to no end, and that alone won her points in his book.

Something about a big, dopey animal not worshipping the ground she walks on amuses Gale, though he can't pinpoint why exactly.

Much as he hates to admit it, he's grown fond of Cookie over the past few days, and if it weren't for his strict 'no pet' policy, he would consider her breed a good choice, something he's pretty sure Madge had been banking on. Granted, she wants a cat, and after all his encounters with Prim's demon kitty, Buttercup, he isn't so sure about that.

The crowd shifts and moves forward, which Gale assumes means the higher corrals are moving out, and he lets Madge's feet settle back on the ground.

"Try to keep up," he tells her.

She rolls her eyes. "I used to run cross country, Gale. You should worry about keeping up with me."

Gale grins. He remembers she ran cross country, specifically the outfit. If weren't for how damn boring watching people run was, he might've shown up to a meet or two just to admire those shorts of hers. They might've gotten together sooner if he had. After all, what reason would there have been for him to go other than admiring her shorts?

"Right," he chuckles. "Used to run. Past tense."

Judging by her expression, she doesn't think her past accomplishments are as far past as he does, but he keeps quiet. Whatever delusion makes her happy.

"Memorize the back of my skirt, Gale," Katniss suddenly says. "'Cause that's all you're gonna see of me here in a few minutes."

He scoffs. "Because you're gonna trip and land on your face? I'll try to jump over you on the way past, but no guarantees."

She starts to yell something back, but the crowd is getting louder and they're making announcements, yammering on about something, and she's cut off when everyone starts moving forward.

"See you at the finish line!" Mellark calls over at them, adjusting his wings a little higher on his back.

Then the crowd starts moving forward and they're off.

#######

Things go pretty well for the first few mile, through the park, stopping for pictures with The Incredibles, Peter and Wendy, and, to Mellark's utter and inexplicable delight, Darth Vader.

"He's a tragic figure, I appreciate that," he defended himself.

"Does tragic mean whiny in your vocabulary?"

Because Gale was pretty sure from what he remembers, that Anakin guy was a whiner.

Mellark had just rolled his eyes at that.

When they'd finally made their way through the park, started through Anaheim, he and Katniss had spent several miles trying to outpace each other, calling increasingly filthy insults back and forth at one another and earning a few irritable looks from other runners as they did.

Huffing and feeling increasingly nauseated, they had to stop at the medical tent about halfway through for aide. Apparently splitting a twelve pack the night before hadn't counted as hydrating or carb loading. Who knew?

They had finished, but almost an hour behind Madge and Mellark.

"I told you beer was a bad idea," Madge chides him gently as she settles on the bed, next to where he's face down in the mattress.

He only manages a grunt in response.

Cool little fingers trail up his arm, and he wishes he had the energy to respond, but his body is making it clear activity, any kind of activity, isn't an option at the moment.

The bed shifts, and he feels gentle weight settle over him, straddling him at the hips, then Madge's hands are on his shoulders, kneading the knots out with her magic fingers.

"How about I run you a nice hot bath and we work your soreness out in there?"

Despite not even wanting to get up to pee, Gale's body instantly begins responding.

A warm bath sounds great. A warm bath with Madge providing a massage sounds downright heavenly.

Turning his head, cheek resting against the cool fabric of the pillowcase, Gale tries to look back at her.

"With bubbles?" Because as much as he hate to admit it, he kind of likes the way the tickle and the light scent of them, not that he'd ever admit to it.

Madge nods. "And after we can watch a movie in here."

Away from Mellark and Katniss. Alone time, the first since they'd come out.

"How does 'Captain America' sound?"

Gale thinks for a moment. "I thought this was a 'Disney weekend'?"

"Disney owns the Avengers, Gale."

Then he wishes he'd been allowed to dress as Iron Man instead of some pixie hybrid. Much cooler.

"Fine," he grumbles, attempting to nudge her off.

She rolls away, grabbing his hand and pulling him from the bed and tugging him towards the bathroom.

Despite his aching muscles and still unsettled stomach, Gale waddles after her, smiling.

This is why he agreed to running in a tutu. The race might've been an exercise in embarrassment, he'll never live down getting shown up by Peeta 'boy I feel great after 13.1 mile because I'm so in shape, wanna play some volleyball' Mellark, but the payoff is definitely going to be well worth it.


	29. Upcycle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers. I also don't own any of the shows mentioned or the channels. I own nothing.

Early August between Freshman and Sophomore Year

Gale reclines back on the plastic chair he'd found on the curb.

It's still in good shape, so he can't understand why they'd tossed it. Their loss.

"Gale, it's got something growing on it," Madge had pointed out, her nose wrinkled in disgust. "And it's sticky."

"I can spray it off with the hose," he explained. Seriously, it wasn't that hard to do.

What did she and Mellark call it? Upcycling?

"This isn't the same thing," she'd told him.

He failed to see the difference.

If she could use old coffee cans and bits of weathered wood to decorate his flowerbed, then he could get his patio furniture from the curb. Fair was fair after all.

He'd relented, after what had to have been a month of prodding, to let her clean up the front of his rental house. She and Mellark had bought flowers, tons and tons of useless, inedible flowers, and turned the front porch and two small plots of weeds next to it into something out of a magazine his grandma read.

Then he'd come home to her painting the kitchen.

"Gale," she'd told him from atop the cabinet, paint smeared in her hair, "this place is a pit. Even your mother said so."

Whether or not his mother had said that his residence was 'a step up from a prison cell' wasn't at issue. In all honesty, he wasn't sure if he was even allowed to paint the house.

The house was clean, it was tidy, it was functional. That's all he demanded of it.

"Don't you want it to feel like a home?" Madge had asked, giving him her most pleading look.

"Or at least less like something out of a Law & Order killer's lair shot?" Mellark had added, earning a small nod from Katniss. Traitor.

"It's fine," he'd assured them. Madge had apparently not gotten the message.

So he'd let her carry on, mostly because she'd made the most pathetic face and she was wearing a pair of her old track shorts. Plus, he decided that if the place was a little less like something out of a cheap horror film she might stay over more often.

So Madge, and to Gale's never ending annoyance, Mellark, had proceeded to completely landscape his backyard and redecorate his house.

"You know, I remember an episode of 'Property Bro-"

"No."

"On 'Love it or L-"

"No."

"I saw on 'Fixer Up-"

"Dammit, Mellark."

He'd let them change out the bathroom mirror with one they'd found at a thrift shop and updated, pull out the (admittedly) questionable carpet in the bathroom area ("Who puts carpet in the bathroom?" Madge asked, gagging), and even let Mellark bring his sewing machine over and whip up new 'window treatments' for all the rooms.

Even though he didn't know what a 'window treatment' was, he'd already hated it.

Gale had eyed the sewing machine, sighing and shaking his head.

"What does Katniss even see in you?"

Mellark grinned. "Do you really want that answer?"

After less than a second of thought, Gale decided he, in fact, did not want to know. Some things are best left to his nightmares.

It wasn't until Mellark made a pinterest board, labeled 'Gale's new groove', and added plans for a pergola, that he'd drawn the line.

"No, no pergola. You do realize this isn't even my house, right?" He'd asked them.

"You do realize they can't do any of this in the apartment?" Katniss had reminded him. "They're just using your house as their creative outlet."

Creative outlet or not, Gale had hidden the remote from them after putting the tv on ESPN, and refused to tell them where it was until they agreed they were both banned from HGTV.

"But what if they come up with creative and thrifty ways to make the most of storage in small spaces?"

Gale's eyebrows pulled together. "I can't even tell if you're screwing with my head anymore or serious."

Mellark sighed. "I don't even know either."

So the updating had slowed to just Madge making little improvements here and there, making his house look a little more respectable. At least he wouldn't hear about how he was going to die in a collapse of cheap lawn furniture while he was eating dinner after his mom's next visit,

Cool hands cover his eyes and he fights off a smile.

In one smooth move he reaches back and grabs his assailant, flipping her into his lap as the cheap metal legs of the lounge chair give way and they hit the cement slab that serves as his back patio.

"Ow," he grumbles, rubbing his butt. He blinks innocently at Madge, legs sprawled over his thighs. "Kiss it and make it better?"

Her eyes roll. "Not a chance. I can't reward bad behavior."

Killjoy.

She gets up, grabbing Gale's hand. "Come on, we need to go pick out a new kitchen table."

He tugs her back, almost pulling her back into his chest. "Tomorrow."

"You said that yesterday," she counters. "Please, Gale, I don't want your parents to come back and think you're still living like a broke college student."

"I am a broke college student," he points out, still letting her yank him up.

Wide blue eyes pin him in a pitiful expression, and he sighs.

To Madge, Gale living in what in her mind amounts to squalor, reflects poorly on her, which is ridiculous. His parents know he's practical and that making things look 'pretty' is fairly low on his list of priorities. If it's functional it's fine, but for Madge things have to be more than just livable.

Maybe it has something to with her childhood, which from what he's learned was anything but easy. Making things look perfect, even if they aren't, is just ingrained in her.

"Fine," he mutters, letting her tug him into the house, sliding the glass doors closed behind him. "But no Mellark."

Madge snorts. "Peeta is with Katniss. They're trying to pick up some things for when Prim visits in a few weeks."

Gale nods. He'd forgotten Prim was coming up to see Katniss before school got back in. Rory had wanted to come up with her, but Gale had cut that idea off at the knees.

"No," he shook his head, even though his brother couldn't see him. "You are not coming here."

"But-"

"No."

If there was one thing Gale didn't need, it was his pervy little brother coming up and leering at his girlfriend.

"I don't leer," Rory muttered in his own defense.

He did. Gale knew leering when he saw it, he'd been Rory's age not too long ago, and he isn't unfamiliar with the inner workings of a teenage boys mind. Madge wasn't being exposed to him or Vick before it is absolutely necessary.

"Where are you dra-uh-where are we going?"

She gives him a narrow look, catching his near blunder, but doesn't say anything.

"I was thinking we could go to that thrift shop that just opened. It's close and it won't be outrageous."

Gale nods. Cheap and close, he likes her line of thinking.

#######

Half an hour, later they're standing in front of several 'previously loved' kitchen tables, awkwardly spread out on dirty tile that, according to the faded words on the wall behind them, used to be the produce section of an old grocery store.

"This one is okay." He points to a small wooden table with chips and nicks across the top.

Madge's nose wrinkles up. "No, it's...no."

She weaves between the tables, inspecting each for nonexistent issues and having silent conversations with herself as she goes.

"Getting all domestic with your little bodyguard?"

Gale feels his jaw clench and his teeth grind. He doesn't even need to turn to know what piece of trash has blown up behind him. Cato.

"Why don't you go stuff your head in one of the toilets?" Gale growls, turning and pointing to the corner of the store where they're selling, for some unknown and awful reason, old toilets. "That's where shit goes."

"Har, har." Cato grins, his eyes flicking over Gale's shoulder to where Madge is searching through the tables, unaware of the jerk watching her. "You know there's a whole section of used mattresses, maybe you should check it out. Your bodyguard might appreciate you getting one with fewer bodily fluids on it."

If they weren't in the middle of a store, surrounded by little old ladies and women digging around for furniture to repaint and sell at craft shows, he'd deck the asshole.

"My mattress is just fine thanks. They might give you a deal though, since I'm sure you'll be a frequent customer."

A little sneer twitches at Cato's mouth.

"Fine, huh? What, you invest in some kind of plastic liner? Spray it down with disinfectant after each of your 'dates'?" Cato snickers. "Or was little miss kick boxer already carrying your particular strands of STDs before you got your dirty dick in her?"

Gale feels his pulse thrum uncomfortably in his temple as his blood pressure skyrockets. He grabs Cato by the front of his shirt, his nose almost bumping into his chin.

"Don't you dare," he spits, his grip tightening. "You want to go at it with me fine, but leave her out of it."

Shoving Gale off, Cato laughs.

"What, you're prince charming now? Defending her honor?" He crosses his arms. "What a load of crap."

"Why don't you go crawl back into the used underwear?" Gale snaps, uncertain how much more of his obnoxious prodding.

"Why don't you-"

"Ahhem."

Cato freezes, his hips turning slightly away and his hands dropping to protect sensitive areas of his anatomy, clearly remembering the last interaction with the little blonde now glaring at him from over Gale's shoulder.

Good, he thinks. He better remember getting his ass handed to him.

Madge's arm wraps around one of Gale's, pinning him to her side. She gives him a tight smile.

"Everything okay?"

No, but once he stuffs Cato's smug face into one of the bedside commodes lined up along the wall, he will be.

"Still slumming it, huh blondie?" Cato asks, his hips still turned away and his sneer not quite as sharp. "If you dated someone you didn't have to paper train you might be able to buy furniture that wasn't bough in bulk at an old lady's estate sale."

Madge's eyes narrow.

"You clearly have a very poor grasp on what 'slumming' means," she answers, a chilly smile on her lips. She points toward the opposite wall, where brightly colored plastic toys are set out. "Why don't you leave us grown ups to our shopping and go find you and Glamour something age appropriate that neither one of you can choke on, like a duplo table."

Color rises in Cato's cheeks and the little vein at his temple throbs out.

"Her name is Glimmer," he grinds out, turning to leave.

Gale almost laughs, the asshole knows he hasn't got a chance against Madge.

"Hope you use the money you save on furniture to invest in cures for Super Clap."

Gale snarls, taking a step after him, but Madge holds him back, her smile widening.

"If you were looking for contributions to your personal project, that's all you had to say."

Freezing midstep, Cato seems to consider turning and saying something, but thinks better of it and continues on, vanishing into the menswear.

A soft puff of air blows across Gale's arm, and he looks over and finds Madge, her eyebrows pulled together as she stares at the spot Cato had vacated.

Hand snaking around her middle, Gale pulls her flush to him. "I've told you how hot you are when you go all badass for me, right?"

Her cheeks tinge pink. "Maybe."

"Super hot," he whispers, leaning in and blowing a warm puff into her ear before nipping at the soft skin below it.

She shivers, her hands gripping the sides of his shirt. "Ice cream hot?"

The laugh he'd held back burst out and he presses a kiss to her jaw. "I have something better than ice cream."

"Mmmm, I think we've already discussed this, and it's a close race." She pulls back, grabbing his hand. "First things first, come look at this table."

Gale groans.

#######

They stop at the 24 hour supermart on the way home, picking up some Cherry Garcia and a kiddie pool Gale finds on sale.

"Why do you want a kiddie pool?" Madge asks, eyeing the tiny blue plastic pool with tiny green frogs on it warily.

Gale hoists it up, smiling at her over the top. "Mellark mentioned a water feature."

She pinches the bridge of her nose. "This isn't what he meant."

He's perfectly aware of that, but he also doesn't care.

They pick out a new set of lounge chairs, ones without anything suspiciously sticky or possibly living on them, then head back to his house.

After the new table is set up, and Gale's old one is stored next to the house until the next lawn clean up day, he drags the pool out back and fills it up, setting the new loungers next to it.

Grabbing a beer, he settles down in it, letting his feet dangle in the cool water.

"You shouldn't have been doing all that lifting," Madge scolds him as she drops into the lounger next to him, the plastic creaking, sticking to her bare legs as she turns to face him. "You could've pulled a stitch."

He rolls his eyes. "I was cleared. I'm fine."

And he's pretty sure he'd know if he ripped open a hole in his guts. Mostly sure.

"Wanna give me a check over?"

Madge gets up, switching over to his seat and nudging him toward the edge, her cool hand inching under the hem of his shirt. Her fingers trace along where the small incisions had been before he palm flattens out and she relaxes, her ear to his chest.

"Seems okay."

They stay like that for several minutes, the sun sinking and the crickets chirping, mosquitoes buzzing around their ears, before Madge sighs.

"You know I'm not slumming it, right?"

Gale frowns, his fingers stopping tracing patterns on her shoulder.

"What?"

She sits up, her expression anxious. "What Cato said, I just-I mean-I know I've been doing a lot of projects here and I didn't want-I don't want you to think I'm trying to change you or I don't like you how you are." She bites her lip. "I just wanted to do nice things for you and maybe make a good impression on your mom and-"

Sitting up, he quiets her with a kiss.

"You're nuts, you know that right?" Falling back, he toys with a loose strand of her hair, twirling it between his fingers. "Cato's a dick. Nothing he says sticks."

Well, mostly not.

Her lips stay puckered and her eyes worried.

"I know he is, but I know how people think to sometimes and I know you think all this is a little silly and I didn't want you to think, you know, that I'm…"

"Upcycling me?" He grins. "That you've lowered your standards?"

She pales a little. "I'm not and I haven't, you know that, right?"

Taking her hand, he kisses her knuckles.

She really has. That's one of the few things he actually thinks Cato pegged pretty well. Madge comes from a place Gale can't even imagine and doubts he'll ever get, and she deserves the best. He may not be it, but he's glad she's picked him to lower the bar for, and he'll spend the rest of his life trying to raise it back up for her.

It also soothes him a little that Cato is beneath her too.

"Sure," he finally murmurs, pulling her back down and wrapping her securely in his arms. "Even if I don't have a pergola."

A little snort of air puffs through his shirt.

"Do you even know what a pergola is?"

Gale let his fingers toy with the loose end of her slowly dissolving ponytail. "Yes, I actually do."

He'd looked it up after they'd mentioned it. Some kind of fancy flower stand from what he saw, and he has enough useless flowers as it is.

Besides, there's no way he's letting Mellark around his house with power tools. It's a recipe for disaster.

"Maybe I'll make you one when we get a place of our own," he tells her, not really thinking.

Madge stills, her hand, which had been tracing a lazy pattern on his stomach freezes and her breathing halts.

"A place of our own?" She asks, uncertainty lacing her voice.

It had just slipped out, but it's something he's thought about quite a bit. Especially on mornings he's stayed over at her apartment and had to wake to the sound of Mellark singing in the shower.

Lazy weekends and goodbye kisses, having her come over to study and not having to worry about clothes and all the little necessities a person doesn't think about until they need them, are all positive points for them moving in together.

Still, it's a bit early he supposes.

"Yeah, you know, little house with a white picket fence." He tilts his head and looks down at her. "We're gonna need a place for all those brats you wanna have."

A little laugh bubbles out of her and she presses her face into his chest.

"I wannahave?" Her eyes are playfully narrowed when she peaks up at him. "I seem to remember you weren't dead set against the idea yourself."

"I was medicated," he quickly reminds her. "I didn't know what I was saying."

She laughs again, relaxing into him, her eyes focusing on the sky.

"Whatever."

Hand sneaking back under her shirt, settling against her waist, Gale lets out a long breath and looks up at the stars as his feet dip back into the slowly warming water of his kiddie pool.

Pergola or not, a dozen kids or none, he doesn't care where they end up, as long as it's together.


	30. V-Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
> 
> AN: Little early, but I have work and if I don't post now I probably won't post at all. Anyways, here you go.

Valentine's Day, Freshmen year

"You know it's V-Day, not D-Day, right?" Mellark asks, eyeing the basket warily.

It's stacked high with food, baking ingredients, chocolates, a twelve pack, and, to Gale's disgust, filet mignon. Nothing against the meat, it's good, he's just pissed he's having to pay an arm and a leg for a cut he doesn't feel is any more superior to any other.

Gale just glares and tosses some seasoning into the basket.

The way his granddad talks, storming the beaches of Normandy would be simpler, and less nerve wracking, than planning a Valentine's Day dinner.

"I just want to give her a really nice holiday," Gale grumbles.

Thanksgiving had been nice, but too...plain. Christmas had been pitiful. New Year's...well, he'd been drunk when Madge came home and gathered him up at the bar, and they'd spent the entire first day of the new year curled up on the couch with Gale nursing a pretty profound hangover. Not that it hadn't been pleasant, but it wasn't exactly special.

He could get drunk and make an ass of himself any day.

Valentine's Day was his chance to make it up to her. He'd saved up and could at least make it a little more memorable.

Madge has tried several times to cook him dinner, with varying success.

She'd burnt lasagna a few weeks prior and turned a simple soup into something Gale had choked down and nearly thrown back up. Even his iron stomach had limits it seemed.

"I'm sorry, Gale," she'd apologized. "I'm trying, I promise."

He knew she was trying, trying so very hard, but she was still a pretty awful cook.

"I come by it honest," she'd added. "My mom is terrible too."

Gale had only grunted, flashed her a quick, wary smile, then eaten the rest of the ultra well-done steak she'd served him.

For a while he'd considered getting her cooking classes for her Valentine gift, he'd found a groupon for them using Mellark's account, but when he'd mentioned it to Katniss, Mellark had butted his khaki wearing ass in.

"You're joking, right?" He'd asked. "Gale, that is the worst of the worst." He'd popped Gale on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. "Bad Gale, bad. Dick move."

Looking back, he can see it might've been one of his less brilliant ideas.

After that he'd agonized over a plan B, then Gale had finally realized he was looking at the gift all wrong.

Madge didn't need lessons to take care of him, he needed to show her he could take care of them both. She knows he can cook, but she deserves to see how well he can. He's a culinary genius and she deserves to see, and taste, that.

Also, it might keep her from feeling the need to try to feed him, ever again hopefully.

So he'd spent the last week building a list of foods he could make, before he'd enlisted cupid's bastard son to hammer out the finer details.

"I thought you said it was a," Mellark wracked his tiny mind for the exact words Gale had used to describe Valentine's Day, " uh 'shitty scam for candy and card companies'."

Gale stands by that assessment. Valentine's Day is nothing more than a made up holiday meant to separate him from his money.

"Besides, Madge doesn't even care about it," Mellark added.

Huffing, Gale rolled his eyes. Every girl cares about Valentine's Day, no matter what they say. The exception to that being Katniss. If it weren't for her dope boyfriend she wouldn't even acknowledge the so-called holiday.

Mellark, on the other hand, cares a little too much about it, but since he's the sap that surprises no one, least of all Gale.

"Are you gonna help me or not?"

Grinning, Mellark had bowed. "I'm at your service."

While he is helpful, and he has offered to make bread for the dinner, he's also obnoxious, sometimes purposely so.

"We don't need crepe paper or," Gale rolled his eyes, "confetti."

"You're impossible," had been Mellark's response as he'd put a gaudy tablecloth back, shooting Gale a sulky look.

Making it out of the party decorations section without strangling Katniss' idiot boyfriend had been nothing short of a Valentine's Day miracle.

"You're such a softie, Gale," Mellark chuckles, reaching out and plucking up a bunch of brightly colored flowers from a display in front of the registers. "Look, three for ten! What a deal!"

"I'm not buying flowers," Gale grumbles, snatching the bundle from Mellark's hands and stuffing them back in their water, earning him a scandalized look from a little old lady.

Cut flowers are a waste of money. They wilt and stink and he refuses to spend hard earned cash on something so...pointless.

"They'll make a pretty centerpiece," Mellark tells him, making his eyes wide, irritatingly like the stupid balloon Cupid floating just over his shoulder, pointing his little, unauthentic bow and arrow at Gale's forehead. "It'll be pretty." He grabs the flowers and shoves them under Gale's nose. "For Madge."

#######

Mellark was right, the flowers did look nice on the table, not that Gale would admit it. So did the candles Mellark had produced out of thin air.

"They're strawberry scented," he told Gale. "Madge loves strawberries."

"I know," Gale grumbled.

He'd tried to find some of the stupid things at the store but they were sold out already. Which was more a disappointment than he'd let on. Dipping Madge's favorite fruit in chocolate had seemed like a romantic gesture in theory, an even more romantic activity, a suggestive activity if he played it right, but clearly not one he'd get to put to the test.

They'd have to content themselves with the strawberry swirl cheesecake Mellark had made...for Katniss.

Swiping it out of the fridge might've been a dick move, but after Mellark had subjected him to his sickly sweet pink sweater over his heart print button up shirt at the grocery store, then serenaded him with improvisational Barry White songs all through the frozen food section, Gale feels like he might be a little entitled to a bit of revenge.

He'd left a twenty in its place at least.

Combing his hair, Gale looks over the set up one last time.

The table is right out of a magazine, with dainty little tea candles and the flowers from the grocery store arranged carefully, perfectly.

Gale had covered the mismatched chairs at his dining table with white sheets and tied them down with black ribbon scavenged from Mellark's sewing scraps, an idea he'd gotten from one of the old lady magazines he'd scanned through while waiting to check out at the grocery store. He'd fixed the wobbly leg on the table and changed the burned out bulbs from the light even.

It looked better than it had at any time since he'd moved in. Not that that was hard, but still, it's good.

Grabbing his keys, he checks his hair one last time in the mirror before heading out.

#######

Madge's last class of the day let out at five fifty, so Gale slouches down in his truck and listens to the radio for half an hour while he waits.

He jerks awake to soft tapping on the passenger side window, and finds Madge smiling in at him, looking windblown and tired, but happy.

"The TA gave us a quiz and I'm pretty sure I aced it," she tells him. "She only did it because she knew half the class wouldn't show up today."

"Hn," Gale grunts, trying to avoid hitting a stringy looking kid as he backs out of the parking spot.

A minute passes and Madge stays quiet, so Gale cuts her a look.

She's squinting at him, her nose wrinkled up and her lip puckered. It's distracting, and Gale almost misses a car backing up in front of him.

"Why're you dressed up?" She finally asks, oblivious to the near wreck she was almost involved in.

Shrugging, Gale tugs at the too stiff collar of his shirt. Damn starch.

"Just-I was just-it's Valentine's Day and I wanted to look nice for you," he mumbles, feeling increasingly stupid. He shouldn't even have tried.

Scooting closer, Madge leans in, her head resting against Gale's arm.

"You're the sweetest, you know that right?"

He isn't, and he doesn't, but he's glad she thinks so anyways.

Grabbing her bag, Madge digs around, making a triumphant noise as she produces a plastic container.

"I made you a treat," she tells him, opening the lid.

Inside are a dozen chocolate dipped strawberries, rolled in pink, red, and white sugar.

"I thought about cooking dinner for you, but that's more a punishment than a gift."

He's glad she said it and not him.

"Does pizza and a movie sound alright instead?" He asks, just barely managing to keep from laughing as she tries to capture one of the strawberries without getting sugar all over her fingers.

"Much better," she agrees, handing him the elusive strawberry.

Grinning, Gale takes it from her and bites into it, dribbling a little juice out the side of his mouth.

Before he can wipe it away, Madge kisses the side of his mouth, her tongue grazing his skin.

Gale has never been more happy for being stuck in line at a red light than he is at that moment. Honestly, they could've died if they hadn't been stopped.

"You're gonna make me wreck," he tells her, trying and failing to sound stern.

She just grins.

Wrapping an arm around her, securing her more tightly to his side, Gale mentally curses whatever assholes bought all the strawberries out from under him at the store. Clearly they're aphrodisiacs and he's not going to get to use them to their full potential.

#######

When they pull into Gale's house, a rental with a crappy paint job and a patchy front yard, Gale is fidgeting.

"What's wrong?" Madge asks for what he thinks is the twentieth time.

"Nothing," he answers again.

He isn't nervous, not really. Madge will like it, he knows she will.

Her life, from what he's learned, has been a mish-mash of parental disappointments and self imposed loneliness, any effort, even a shitty one, is appreciated. Which makes things easier as well as making Gale frustrated.

Half-assed shows of affection shouldn't be good enough for anyone, least of all Madge. She doesn't realize that though, and he hopes someday he can fix that.

Until then, sincere but poor will have to do.

Pulling her out of the truck with him, Gale leans in and kisses her, sucking the last of the sugar and juice from her lips.

"Okay," he tells her, once she's good and breathless, "wait on the porch."

Her nose wrinkles up again, more in curiosity this time, and she nods, letting him tug her along to the little porch and waiting patiently as he ducks in the house.

Kicking off his boots, Gale quickly plugs in the twinkle lights strung across the ceiling, grabs his lighter and carefully gets all the candles burning, then turns on the music.

Checking his hair, which had not held up well at all in the wind, Gale tries to smash it back into place, but gives up after a minute. Some battles are just not worth the fight.

Opening the door, he pulls Madge in.

"Gale, what's on-oh!"

Her eyes sparkle, reflecting the twinkle lights, as she scans the room, mouth slightly open.

"You decorated for me?"

Gale shrugs. Technically, Mellark had, but Gale had helped, and it had been his idea, so really, he deserves the credit.

"Yeah."

She sniffs the air and her face breaks into a brilliant smile.

"You cooked for me?"

"Yeah."

She looks at the table, smile never wavering.

"So no pizza?"

Gale rolls his eyes. "Once you've had what I made, you'll apologize for asking that."

Snorting, Madge wraps him in a hug. "I'm sure I will."

#######

"Did you just cook to show me up?" Madge asks as they watch Batman Returns, curled up on the couch, her

He almost slips and says heating up a hot pocket in the microwave had the potential to show up her kitchen skills, but he catches himself.

"I just wanted you to know you don't have to be perfect at everything." He presses a kiss to her neck. "I'm not dating you for your cooking."

Madge snorts. "You know, Haymitch says the same thing to my mom."

Grimacing and hoping he can forget that bit of information before he ever meets Madge's mom and stepdad, Gale just sighs. "Right."

Snuggling more firmly against him, Madge laughs. "I don't think he meant it like that."

Gale's pretty sure he probably had, Mellark and Katniss' description of the man paints a pretty vivid picture, but he keeps the thought to himself.

Rolling, Madge settles on her back and smiles softly up at him.

"Thank you." She glances at the twinkle lights, still miraculously clinging to the ceiling. "This is definitely the best Valentine I've ever gotten."

"You've never had a boyfriend to give you a Valentine before," he points out.

Madge just shrugs. "Details."

A detail he hopes never changes.

"Well your strawberries were the best Valentine I've ever gotten."

She makes an incredulous noise. "I'm pretty sure that's a lie."

"Nope."

It isn't. He's gotten a lot of...interesting gifts, but none he's enjoyed half as much as strawberries and kisses from Madge.

"I'd give up all those other gifts of it meant I could get those Valentine's Days back and spend them with you."

God, he's sounding as sappy as Mellark.

But it's true, so he supposes he'll live with it.

"You really are the best," she says again, right before yawning. She grins sheepishly. "Sorry."

Gale just kisses her.

If his day ends with getting to watch her sleep, curled around him, so much the better. He can't imagine a better way to spend the last hours of an overly commercialized fake holiday.

His phone vibrates on the table and he considers not looking at it, but Madge snatches it up, frowning as she reads the message.

"GoddamnitGale, u r a dick," she reads aloud. "Why's Katniss mad?"

Thinking of the half eaten strawberry swirl cake in his fridge, Gale shrugs.

"No idea."


	31. Wheeling Dealing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.
> 
> AN: Yeah, I'm still adding to this occasionally. This is an old addition that I just found and played with a little.

Summer between Freshman and Sophomore

Madge watches as Gale kicks the tires on the little gray colored car at the back of the lot.

Sorry, she thinks, silver car. That's what both Gale and the salesman call it. Silver. Why do colors only matter to guys when it comes to cars?

She doesn't want a new car. Honestly, losing the old one was a blessing in disguise. Driving is one of her least favorite activities and if she needs to go somewhere not within walking or biking distance then she's got plenty of people she can beg for a ride. She's saving the environment. It's great.

Gale doesn't seem to think so though. He's been nagging (and that's the word she's used against him, nagging) her to get a new car.

"You'll have to get one eventually," he'd told her, looking annoyed at her attempts to avoid the topic.

"Says who?" She'd mumbled before immersing herself in piles of handwritten notes she suddenly needed to organize.

After spending several days getting the stink eye from Gale, and him, Katniss, and Peeta banding together and refusing to give her rides, forcing her to ride with Annie, a worse driver than Madge, and her coworker, both of which seem to be trying to break land speed records, Madge gives in.

"I'll call and tell them I'm going to pick a new one," she'd grumbled after fleeing her ride home from work with Katy-Jo Lewes behind the wheel, feeling a little green.

"Thank god," Gale had sighed, pressing his fingers to his eyes. "No offense, but your friends suck at driving. I got ulcers just watching them drop you off."

Now, after having had Gale tell her just why all her choices are unacceptable and listening to him 'negotiate' with the salespeople at seven different car lots, she thinks she should've waited it out a little longer. Just a few days more and Gale would've given in and started driving her again, she's sure of it.

Or she could just start taking the bus.

Madge would say it's some kind of macho man thing, arguing with other men over car prices and perks, but Peeta had told her that Katniss had been just as bad when she'd gone with him.

"I'm pretty sure we're on some kind of 'do not approach' list now," he'd told Madge, looking wind-burned from hours of standing in the chilly winter air while Katniss had intimidated the pants off a poor middle-aged man just wanting to make a Christmas bonus.

Standing under a blazing summer sky, without a breeze to be felt, Madge thinks she should've been more sympathetic. Katniss is probably every bit as picky as Gale.

"Please, Gale," Madge pleads with him as he puts his hands on the roof and leans over, peering through the tinted windows at the interior. "It's not too much. Can't I just pay?"

She's tired and sweaty and they've been looking at cars since nine in the morning. He's given his seal of approval to this car, it's mileage and fuel usage, the 'bells and whistles', safety, safety, safety, and the price is reasonable enough, to her at least. It would be fine with her to pay and leave.

"You never pay the sticker price, Madge," he tells her, standing up and squinting out, looking for the harried man in the yellow shirt trying desperately to make this stupid sale. "Trust me."

It takes all Madge's self-control not to snap that she doesn't care. If the sticker price is in her budget then why shouldn't she pay? It's Haymitch's money anyway. He'd told her to buy whatever she wanted, no matter the cost. It sounds a little entitled, but she feels like she should. Anything just to go home.

She'd followed the rules her dad had put down for her when she'd gotten her first car, which is now stolen and probably chopped into hundreds of pieces or being used to smuggle drugs.

Four-door, not red, high safety rating. That had narrowed her choices down significantly. This should've been a breeze.

Those had been his only rules and when Madge had found her crappy little sedan, high mileage and all, after he'd looked it over and had a mechanic give it a clean bill of health, he'd happily paid for it.

If it hadn't been stolen it would've probably fallen apart by now.

She misses her dad and his mellow attitude at the moment, the more the sun beats down and Gale drags his negotiations on.

"Can we at least go inside?" She asks. Her nerves might not be so frayed if she weren't standing on hot concrete. A/C and a complimentary cup of water would do wonders for her.

"No," Gale answers. "The more uncomfortable he is the better my chances are of getting the price knocked down."

Madge almost groans. His tactics are certainly working on her.

Finally, the man in the yellow shirt returns, wiping profuse amounts of sweat from his forehead with what looks like a handful of paper towels. He smiles wanly at Gale.

"Well, sir, let's see if this proposal will work for you." He shuffles a handful of papers in his hand. "I had to get clearance from my manager…"

The man, Madge thinks his name is Mark or Martin, something with an 'M', starts rattling off things, too fast for Madge's sluggish mind to keep up. Though she doubts she'd have understood what he was talking about even if she weren't dehydrated and sun-fried. Cars aren't really her area of expertise.

If Gale's slight flick of his eyes skyward is any indication, he isn't too impressed with whatever 'manager deal' Merle has put together.

Rubbing his chin, Gale turns and looks at the little car and sighs. "I don't know. I mean, it's got a little hail damage on the roof."

He points to a few almost nonexistent dents near the passenger side.

Matt deflates.

"Mr. Hawthorne," he begins, looking completely defeated, "this car is under a year old, minor hail damage isn't an issue."

"Not to you maybe, but if I'm paying this much for something I want it to be in near perfect condition. Plus that might affect the integrity of the door in a side impact collision."

Madge glares at him. He isn't paying for it and he's already said this is one of the safest cars on the market, minor hail damage or not.

"Look at the safety record of this model," Mitch starts at a different angle. "You want your wife and any little ones to be safe don't you? You won't find a safer car at this price."

Madge's glare turns on him. Why do people always talk about them having kids? Does she look like she has baby rabies?

Gale lifts his cap from his head and scratches his sweaty hair, squinting down at the car. He looks at the car beside it and then up at Marvin.

"Change the tires out and fill it up and I think we can make it work."

Poor Miles, Madge finally remembers his name, smiles. "I think we can manage that."

#######

"See?" Gale smiles over at Madge in the passenger seat as he drives them home in her new car with its pillaged tires and full tank of gas. "That wasn't so bad."

Madge slumps lower in the seat and doesn't respond, choosing to stare out the window and contemplate her wasted day in silent irritation.

Gale reaches over and grabs her hand, gives it a squeeze.

"Oh, come on. I even got rid of the shitty tires for you, they'd have blown out and you'd have a wreck. These are almost brand new."

Madge just sighs. Tires are the least of her worries. Unlike Gale she burns in the sun. There's an oatmeal bath and gobs of aloe vera in her future just because he's too demanding.

She grumbles an unintelligible response.

He's quiet after that and Madge uses the lull to imagine having chosen the first car she'd been shown. She'd be home already.

"Look, Madge," Gale sighs as they pull into the apartment parking. "I just wanted you to get the best car."

"Not the 'best price'?" Madge rolls her eyes.

"Not just the best price," he growls. "It took months to drag you out to the car lots. God only knows when I'll get you out there again. Probably not until the engine falls out of this thing and I wanted to make sure whatever you chose will last until, you know, whenever."

"It'll last until it doesn't," Madge points out, not bothering to keep the bite from her voice. That's how cars work.

"Yeah but I want it to be safe until then," he mutters. Shifting in the seat, he gives her a little smile. "And it makes me sick to pay that much for something that's only going to last a few years."

She doesn't point out that it isn't his money, it isn't even her money, because as annoying as his power play at the dealership has been she understands where he's coming from. Gale's never had the choice not to fight for a good deal, and she doubts he'll ever unlearn the lessons a childhood of scrimping and saving taught him.

Besides, this car really does have a great safety record.

He's just doing the best he can for her, even if it is irritating at times.

Leaning over, she kisses his cheek. "Fine, but I'm still burnt and annoyed."

Even if she understands why he tried to drive the car salesman mad, that doesn't change the fact that she's going to spend the next week as a crispy critter and peeling like a badly painted door.

"If I help you slather up will that help me on the road to forgiveness?"

"Would you care?" Madge asks, rolling her eyes at him.

He just laughs.


	32. Sorting Things Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

Fall, Sophomore Year (Follows 'The One With Madge's Folks')

A cold rain drizzles down, tapping in the windows of the coffee shop as a miserably cold wind rattles the door.

It's too cold for even the most dedicated coffee lovers on campus to venture out, and Gale sees that as a perfect reason to shut the place down for the day, but Madge is determined.

"I can't just decide to close because it's cold and rainy. What if someone wants coffee and gets here and we aren't open?"

Gale has to fight not to roll his eyes.

"Then they'll go home and make their own damn cup." Like they should be doing anyways. The prices are sickening, even if he'd pay it just to spend time with Madge.

Ignoring him, Madge just carries on, sweeping up a pile of damp leaves that had blown in and humming to herself.

She shouldn't be back at work anyways. Her surgery is only a few weeks past. Lifting all that coffee crap could hurt her.

"The girls aren't letting me pick up anything heavier than a mug," Madge assured him, but Gale didn't buy it. Her coworkers are idiots. If they really were looking out for her they would've insisted she stay off work longer.

Besides, it isn't like she needs the money.

For the first time in their relationship Gale wishes Madge would use the money he knows she has. If ever there were a time to play the part of a pampered rich girl, now is it.

Dropping into one of the chairs, Gale pulls out his notebook and begins working on his assignment, his leg bouncing under the table.

A few minutes pass, Gale taps out functions on his calculator and listens to Madge's humming mixing with the tink-tink tap of rain on glass, before it stops. He looks up, sensing danger, and sees Madge crawling up on a stool to turn on the television.

"Get down from there!" Gale half yells as he rushes over to pull her down, sending his papers and calculator crashing to the ground. "The doctor told you nothing strenuous."

Madge rolls her eyes as he pulls her from the stool and sets her down, gives her a stern look.

"I'm fine. It's been two weeks."

That doesn't make any difference to Gale. Two weeks isn't nearly long enough to heal from such a major surgery.

"You could've pulled something loose."

Nose wrinkling, Madge huffs and pushes Gale's steadying hand away, lifts the hem of her shirt a fraction to show him her incisions.

"Look, no blood. All my insides are still where they're supposed to be."

Her stomach is smooth and perfect except for the one incision Gale can see. A pink scar with peeling edges. Glue. That quack of a doctor had glued her together, something that still burns Gale.

Closing his eyes, he doesn't like to look at where they'd cut on her, be reminded that he's a crap boyfriend and it's his fault, Gale takes her hand and makes her pull her shirt back down.

"Fine, but, you just-I'll turn the tv on, okay?"

Reaching over her head, Gale clicks on the tv and smiles.

"See? Wasn't that easier?" Although it'd be even easier if someone hadn't stolen their remote.

Trying and failing to look annoyed, Madge's lips twitch as she sighs and waves her hand at the screen.

"Keep going up, there's a Harry Potter marathon on."

Gale groans. He isn't crazy about the boy-who-lived like she is, but seeing as if he doesn't she'll climb back on the stool and do it herself, Gale dutifully hits the channel button until he sees Dumbledore striding across the screen.

"Thank you."

Grumbling a 'you're welcome' Gale goes back to his table and scoops up his calculator and now damp papers from the floor.

After a few minutes Madge drops into the seat across from him and pushes a steaming mug toward his hands.

"Black, strongest we have."

Gale takes the mug and inhales the scent. It certainly smells like it could climb out and walk off if not drank fast enough. Perfection in caffeinated form.

Glancing over, he sees Madge's mug is much lighter inside, has cinnamon sprinkled on the fluff, and smirks. She claims to like coffee, but her gussied up drink begs to differ.

"That looks painful," she says, craning her neck and eyeing his notes.

Shrugging, Gale flicks some of the debris from his folder.

"It's kinda fun."

In that it's mentally stimulating.

She snorts, gives him an exaggeratedly shocked look. "Fun? If that's fun I can't imagine what you're doing with me. We clearly have nothing in common."

Gale almost tells her there's plenty they do together that's more fun than solving complex equations, but then remembers those little scars on her belly he'd helped put there with his poor self-control and birth control that is less than one hundred percent, and the quip dies in his mouth.

"I didn't say I do it for fun, just that it is kinda fun."

His expression must amuse her, because she leans in and grins.

"Oh, don't be all grumpy." She takes his hand, her smile softening. "I'm only teasing you. Not everything has to be so serious."

Maybe not, but it feels like it should. If he'd been more serious then she wouldn't have been cut open on a cold table surrounded by a bunch of strangers. She wouldn't have almost died.

"I'm fine."

"It could've gone bad-"

"But it didn't-"

"It-"

"Gale," she cuts him off, her lips pressed into a line, "if you're going to spend this entire day treating me like glass and acting mopey then go home. You didn't break me and I don't appreciate you taking all the weight of this on your shoulders. I wasn't exactly innocent."

Gale opens his mouth to argue, she is innocent and he deserves every bit of the blame for what happened, but stops when he sees the tears glistening in her eyes.

He's been a tad overprotective since the surgery, he'll admit that, but all for good reason. She hasn't taken what happened as seriously as she should, wanting to get back to work, crawling up on stools, lifting things too heavy for her. Gale has to look out for her.

The rational side of him knows she's right though. It was a random accident, her having an ectopic pregnancy, even if he still feels lousy about it. She feels just as awful about it, and he's being a little selfish, taking all the blame, making it all about him.

"I'm sorry," he finally tells her, standing and pulling her up, into a tight hug, close enough he thinks he feels her heart beating against his chest. "I just-I feel like I failed you-"

"You can't protect me from everything."

"I want to," he mutters. "I'm just really bad at it, apparently."

Madge laughs, a little watery sounding, then sniffles.

"You're doing a great job. You can't control everything, and you can't get all surly when things happen outside what you can control." She pulls back, her nose wrinkled. "And you can't spend the rest of your life following me around and protecting me from imaginary dangers."

Gale huffs. What imaginary dangers? That stool looks unsteady and even if she hadn't just had surgery he wouldn't like her ride her stupid bike to work in the middle of the winter. She'll end up dead in a snowdrift or with a cold or-

He sees her point.

"Fine." He gives her a narrow look. "But I still feel like we should close this place down for the day. No one is going to come."

Her lips twitch up and she shrugs.

"Probably not." She wraps her hands in his and leans in. "If I call the manager and get it okay'd will you let me watch Harry Potter at your house?"

Leaning in, Gale presses a kiss to her forehead.

"Absolutely."

#######

"I'd be in Gryffindor," Gale tells Madge as he flips the pancake into her plate. "That's the good guys, right?"

He's ninety percent sure he's right.

Madge snorts. "Well, that's Harry's house."

"So yeah."

Taking her plate and pouring an obscene amount of syrup on it, Madge makes a face.

"That's a little simplistic. There are good guys and bad guys in every house. Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor and he was bad."

"That's the rat guy, right?" Of course he turned bad. His animal form was a literal metaphor for a devious piece of shit. "They shoulda saw that coming."

Madge takes a bite of her pancake and sighs, an uplifted expression on her face.

"He should've been in the snake house-"

"Slytherin-"

"Yeah," Gale nods. "The asshole house."

Madge laughs and almost chokes on her dinner.

"They aren't all assholes."

Gale arches an eyebrow.

He's watched the movies, and he's pretty sure they were all assholes.

"Snape was...," she starts to offer, then makes a face. "Yeah, he was a little…"

"Douchey?"

Making a noncommittal noise, Madge takes another bite.

"Well, there are two other houses to be sorted into. You don't have to be Gryffindor."

True, but they're about as cool as brown beans. Gryffindor, as much as Gale remembers from reading the first two books to Posy, is the brave house, the house of champions, and that's Gale.

"I'm in Ravenclaw," Madge adds. "Because I love learning and cleverness. Katniss is Hufflepuff and-"

"What?" Gale looks up from flipping his pancake, an amused smile working its way onto his face. "What do you do? Sort people in your free time?"

A light blush grows on her cheeks and she picks at her soggy pancake.

"You have your fun and I have mine," she mutters before stuffing an overly large chunk of pancake into her mouth.

Walking around the counter, Gale settles into the seat beside her and leans in.

"So Katniss gets Hufflepuff, huh? Lame."

Madge turns, glaring. "Not lame. Hufflepuff are great. Prim and I talked about it and it suits Katniss. Prim is Hufflepuff too."

She looks so thoroughly offended by his jab at the house that Gale can't help but chuckle.

"Okay, fine. It's probably for the best. She probably needs to be in the dork house to protect that pastry puff boyfriend of hers."

Mellark would probably end up in the hospital wing with his wand up his nose if he really were a wizard.

Swallowing her bite, Madge shakes her head.

"Peeta's Slytherin." She shrugs. "He's very cunning."

Or evil. It doesn't surprise Gale, just helps to confirm what he's always thought.

Petra Mellark is a manipulative bastard and his supposed sweetness is a sham.

"What about me?" Gale asks.

Probably the easiest person she had to sort.

"Well, you have a lot of Slytherin traits…"

What?

"...but so did Dumbledore and Sirius. You're also very loyal-"

"Don't you dare put me with Huffleness and Primpuff, Madge." There are some things a relationship can't survive, even if he doesn't fully understand this whole house thing.

She rolls her eyes.

"In the end though, your bravery won out."

Good.

Reaching over the counter, Gale grabs his own plate and begins pouring syrup on his oversized pancake.

"So do you sort everyone?" He asks as he starts cutting into his dinner. "Really?"

Shrugging, Madge nods.

"It passes the time." She gives him a small grin. "Prim and I worked on it when she was up last. We sorted your brothers and sister too."

Gale's eyebrows arch. "Oh yeah?"

Excitedly, Madge turns on her seat and nods.

"Yeah. Prim made tables and decided both Rory and Vick are Gryffindor, like you, but Posy is Slytherin."

Prim clearly needs to reassess her sorting methods.

Sweet little Posy is not Slytherin, she's definitely Gryffindor. If anyone is a snake, it's Rory.

As their brother he knows better than anyone.

Deciding it isn't worth it to argue, Gale takes a bite and lets her continue.

"My mom is Hufflepuff. Dad is Ravenclaw, like me. And Haymitch is Ravenclaw too, of course."

Gale almost chokes.

"Haymitch is a Slytherin if I ever saw one."

He's only met the asshole once, but if Mellark is Slytherin then Haymitch definitely is.

"What about those dumbass barista friends of yours? They're Slytherin definitely."

Madge gives him a withered look.

"You know, there's more to sorting than just putting people you like in one house and the ones you don't in Slytherin."

It should be that simple, but she's the wizard bullshit expert, he'll just bow to her knowledge.

Except about Posy.

"Katy-Jo Lewes is in Hufflepuff and Birdy's Ravenclaw, just for the record."

Lewes he can agree with, grudgingly, but Alameda is like Haymitch. Slimy snake to the core.

Finishing off his pancake, Gale tosses his plate in the sink and follows Madge to the couch, collapsing down onto the nest of blankets she'd constructed and letting her nuzzle against him.

She falls asleep halfway through the fifth movie, which considering the rage fit Potter constantly seems to be in, is pretty impressive.

Gently, Gale brushes loose strands of hair from her face, shifts her so her neck doesn't hurt when she wakes, then presses a kiss to her temple.

Maybe he is a little Slytherin, because he's pretty sure he'd use every underhanded tactic he knows to keep her safe, even if he knows she'd hate it.

Still, he thinks that being willing to walk through fire and weather a flood for her makes him Gryffindor to the core.

Yawning, Gale relaxes back and rolls his eyes at himself.

Madge and her ridiculous love of wizards and magic and really complex sorting algorithms has rubbed off on him.

Grinning, he presses another kiss to her temple.

She may think she's a Ravenclaw, and she'd know better he guesses, but there's definitely a little Gryffindor in her soul.

He'd heard it roar at him, knock some sense into him, and he doubts it'll be the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I just really wanted to talk about Harry Potter and I've got, like, five friends and they're all either out of state or being moms and have zero time for me. So I talked about it with myself. At least I kept it to just sorting characters. Also, Gale's very biased method of sorting is based on my brothers' sorting method, which is, good=Gryffindor and bad=Slytherin and forget there are 2 other houses. It's very frustrating, but so very Gale that I had to use it. Sorry guys.


	33. Christmas Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

December, Sophomore Year

"You know, if you put anymore lights up planes are gonna start landing on your roof, right?"

Gale ignores Mellark and tears the electrical tape with his teeth before using it to reinforce the lights.

He's exaggerating. The house is hardly landing strip bright. He hadn't had the stomach or the purchasing power to buy that many.

Christmas lights are a big waste of time and money in Gale's opinion. His family had always put them up, but Gale had vowed never to do the same when he grew up. It's something he'd apparently grumbled in front of Mellark at some point, and the jerk had wasted no time pointing his change of heart out when Gale mentioned his decorating intentions.

"Do you just write everything I say down to use against me?" Gale snapped.

"Not against you, no," Mellark shrugged. "I'm saving it all up for my cornerstone project senior year. Never hurts to be prepared."

Glaring, Gale gritted his teeth.

"I'm not some psych case for you to dissect."

Mellark grinned. "You kinda are."

"This is why you're Slytherin," Gale muttered before tossing another box of lights into the basket.

"What?" Katniss asked, looking away from the noisy blow up decoration, Darth Vader wielding a lightsaber in one hand and a gift in the other.

"Gale is just marveling at my amazing memory."

Katniss stared for a minute, then nodded. "He's like a human recorder." She looked back to Vader. "What does he have to do with Christmas? Isn't he the bad guy?"

Half an hour later, after Mellark gave a long, and very boring explanation about society's desire to see the irredeemable redeemed and something about attachment to distant father figures, Gale had all but drug them out of the store.

If he hadn't needed their help he wouldn't have brought them, but he'd wanted to have the house completely decorated before Madge's last class ended for the day, and that required extra hands.

"Stop yapping and finish wrapping the pillars," Gale grumbles.

The dork was supposed to be there for moral support, hot chocolate making and cookies, but he kept coming outside. Gale suspects he's being a little pervert, staying at Katniss' backside while she's hanging lights. Not that it matters. If he's outside he's going to be useful.

Humming cheerfully, Mellark continues with his strand of twinkle lights as Katniss finally climbs down from her ladder.

"That's the last of it. I had to use duck tape on the peak, but I don't think it shows," she tells them, brushing snow from her hair.

Nodding, Gale warms his hands before crouching down beside the porch to pick up the extension cord.

"We should do a drum roll," Mellark says as he plugs his final strand into the chain. He adjust his ridiculous hat, pulling the woolly ear flaps more snugly over his ears. "Add some dramatics."

"Peeta, no."

Ignoring her, Mellark makes an annoying thrumming noise with his tongue as he eagerly stares at the house.

Rolling his eyes, Gale shoots Katniss a look that plainly says 'your boyfriend is a walnut' before jamming the plug into the extension cord.

For one horrible moment he thinks it isn't going to work, which is absurd, Gale had personally checked every light. Then they flick on.

He'd picked multicolored lights, despite Mellark telling him white was 'purer, cleaner'.

The multicolored have an endearing quality about them. They're old fashioned, sweet, festive, reminded him of home and his family.

Madge will like them, he's certain of it. It might even be enough to make her want to spend a Christmas with him this year instead of flying to some exotic location to see her folks.

"Is the house on fire, Clark?" Mellark asks, his voice pitched up in an uncanny imitation of an elderly woman's warble.

Gale snorts. That was actually kind of funny.

"There aren't that many," Katniss defends Gale's light show before grinning. "Close though."

#######

Mellark and Katniss stay for another hour, until Gale gets sick of their Griswold jokes and tells them to go home already.

"And don't expect Madge back tonight."

"We never do anymore," Katniss snickers as Mellark makes kissy noises from the driver seat of his toy car, slowly rolling the window up as the first bars of 'Santa Claus is coming to town' come over the radio.

Gale is happy to see Katniss' smug expression vanish as Mellark turns up the radio and pulls out of the drive.

Hoping Mellark starts singing to Katniss, which isn't even a suitable punishment for having brought her dope boyfriend to help but it'll do for now, Gale turns and brushes the snow off his coat before getting in his truck.

The asphalt is shining and wet, reflecting the street lights and the Christmas lights from the houses lining the street as Gale drives toward the main part of campus to pick up Madge.

Snow is coming down harder with each passing minute, sticking to the windshield and building up in the lawns, blocking the sidewalks even as students scurry down them through the blinding swirls.

Pulling into the parking lot next to Madge's last class, Gale parks and turns up the heater as he squints at the exit, hoping the ground isn't slippery.

Minutes tick by as the snow accumulates, building soft mounds on the shrubbery, before Madge emerges.

She's bundled up, a fluffy, marshmallow coat, thick scarf, and a floppy hat pulled low over her eyes.

At first she doesn't see Gale and goes to the bike rack, fumbling with her lock before Gale honks at her. Looking up, she makes an unreadable face under her scarf before waddling over to the truck.

Gale rolls down the window and grins as she pulls her scarf down and smiles.

"Trolling for a date?"

"I've got specific tastes," Gale answers, reaching out and dusting powder snow from her hat. "Need a ride?"

Glancing over her shoulder, out at the snowy landscape and the increasingly heavy snowfall, Madge turns back and shrugs.

"What's the cost?"

Gale's hand drops from her hat and wraps in the scarf and gives her a gentle tug forward.

"What you got to offer?"

Leaning in, Madge pops on her toes and lurches into the window, pressing a long kiss to Gale's chapped lips. She drops back onto her heels, just as he's about to pull her the rest of the way in and fog the windows, gives him a little grin.

"That do?"

"It's a start," Gale growls, jerking his head toward the passenger side door. "Get in and we can discuss the rest."

Snorting, Madge half skips around the front of the truck and flings the door open, bringing snow and icy wind into the cab before jumping in and pulling it shut.

"Have I told you lately that you're the best boyfriend?"

"Not in the last day or so." And it warms his cold dead heart to hear it. "But save your praise for a minute."

He motions for her to scoot closer, settle against his side, before he puts the truck in drive and heads out.

They drive for a few minutes before Madge squints up at him.

"Where are we going?"

Ignoring her, Gale's hand inches under her sweater and pinches her side, earning a squeal from her.

"Your hands are like ice!"

Laughing, Gale kisses her hair, which is cold and damp where it pokes out from under her hat, before steering into the poorly lit parking lot of a tiny grocery store.

The name is faded, some of the lights in the name are burned out, and through the giant window along the front Gale spots several checkers and baggers horsing around as closing time inches nearer. He isn't there for food though.

Pulling to the side, Gale spots their real destination.

It's a family run tree sale. Gale had seen them setting up the other day and instantly knew this was where his and Madge's tree needed to come from.

When Madge gasps, she finally knows too.

"You're gonna get a tree!" She yelps, bouncing excitedly. "Gale, you said you didn't want one!"

He doesn't. It's a waste of precious money and kind of stupid.

Madge wanted one though, and all they could get in their apartment had been a pathetic little potted tree sprayed with glitter that Katniss had knocked over so many times in the past week it hardly stood straight anymore.

Plus, despite himself, Gale kind of missed having one up. It reminded him of home. He'd eat his boots before admitting it though.

"Come on," he grumbles, trying and failing not to grin as he pulls her out the door and into the now gently falling snow.

#######

Madge picks a smaller tree, one that just barely reaches Gale's chin.

It's full, smells of the woods and earth, and hardly and needles fall off when Gale tosses it into the truck bed. It isn't a bad tree at all.

He lets Madge drag him into the grocery store, with only minutes to go before closing, to snatch up some discount ornaments, candy canes, and a package of very cheap looking tinsel before they head home.

They've barely turned the corner onto Gale's street when Madge gasps again.

"Gale!"

Glancing over, Gale sees her eyes, bright with the reflected light from his house, her smile bright enough to power every bulb he and Katniss had placed.

When they pull in the drive she leans forward, taking it all in, before punching Gale softly in the ribs.

"You big softy. You like decorating."

Leaning over, Gale presses a kiss just below her ear.

"Trust me, I'm not soft in the least." And he doesn't like decorating. He'll tolerate it though, for her, to see that look on her face.

Madge snorts and cuts him a glance.

"You're a big pervert, too."

That's a little true.

Opening his door, he pulls her out, hoists her up over his shoulder as she half-heartedly tells him to put her down as she laughs while he carries through the snow to the porch.

Plopping her down, he hears the heels of her boots click on the wood before he straightens up and grins at her.

"So you like it?"

Her eyes are even brighter out in the cold as she turns on the spot, smiling as she takes in the entire house.

"I love it," she finally tells him, looking into the flower bed, where Gale has a lighted plastic snowman. "It's perfect."

It's cheesy, but if she likes it Gale doesn't care.

"And once the tree is up and you can see it through the window," she sighs, looking at the empty window, "it'll be even more perfect."

The thing that would make it more perfect for Gale is knowing on Christmas morning he'd wake with Madge beside him in bed, her cold nose pressed to his chest and her warm breath ghosting over his skin.

Before he can ask though, Madge has run back to the truck.

"Help me get the tree!"

And by help, she means get the tree.

Taking a deep breath of icy air, Gale stomps back to the truck through the snow.

#######

Gale lights up the fireplace, warming the entire house, as Madge tosses the last of the tinsel artfully on the tree.

He chuckles to himself as she crawls under the limbs and searches for the plug, finally making a triumphant noise as she finds it and lights the tree.

It glows softly from its spot in front of the window, setting the rest of the room in warm shadows along with the little fire flickering merrily from the fireplace.

Madge ladles them both mugs of Mellark's hot chocolate before flopping onto the couch next to Gale and passing his to him.

"You really are the greatest boyfriend," she tells him again as she snuggles into one of Gale's sweatshirts, inhaling deeply before sipping her drink.

For a second Gale watches her fuss with the blankets, creating her own little nest, before reaching out and brushing a wayward strand from her face.

"The greatest boyfriend to spend Christmas with?"

It's the wrong time to ask, he's sure of it the minute the words have passed his lips, but it's what all his holiday decorating has been working towards. It's the only thing that can make his Christmas complete.

She doesn't answer for a moment, just stares at him before setting her mug down.

"Like, come to your family's house for Christmas? Skip my family?"

Gale feels the air leave his lungs. He knew she wouldn't wan-

Before he can even form the apology Madge has flung herself at him, her lips smashing to his.

"I would love to," she tells him, her lips still half pressed to his. "I can see Poppa before he leaves to go visit Mom and Haymitch, and Dad can come see me when he gets back from California-it'll work out great!"

A little stunned, Gale just stares at her for another second before letting a grin slip onto his face.

"Really?" She really wants to skip a trip to Hawaii or the Bahamas or wherever the hell Haymitch wants to take her, to spend several long days with his pervy brothers and nosy sister?

"Yes really," she answers, laughing. "Unless you don't really want me to?"

She's nuts.

"I've never wanted anything more for Christmas in my life."

He catches her lips before rolling, pinning her between his body and the couch.

"You ready to pay me back for that ride?"

She bursts into laughter, bright and happy, the best Christmas music Gale has ever heard.

"You are such a pervert."

"Wait till you spend a few hours with Rory and Vick, I'll look like a gentleman."

Her smile widens as she pulls him closer.

"You are a gentleman. A perverted gentleman, but a gentleman nonetheless."

His hands begin wandering under the sweatshirt, finding her soft skin underneath and enjoying the shiver of her body against his as he kisses a line down her neck before pulling the top off.

As long as she's in his bed on Christmas morning, and every morning after that, he'll take being a perverted gentleman.


End file.
